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Rogue pauses at the top of the steps, smoothing her red dress, taking a moment to steady herself before she descends. The ballroom spreads out beneath her, a paradise of crystal pools and tropical plants, flushed pink beneath the lights. There’s an audible hush when she arrives. The guests turn to look at her, then lean in to whisper among themselves. Are they just excited to see one of the legendary X-Men or have they heard about Magneto’s proposal to her? Gossip travels fast in the mutant community.
She spots Gambit at the bar, sharing a drink with Madelyne Pryor, as Jean Grey’s clone has taken to calling herself. If Remy is beautiful in his grungy tops and jeans, he’s downright luminous in his white tuxedo, like a new sun risen in Genosha, lighting up the entire island and obliterating everything else in her view. She doesn't know how Madelyne can be so casual around him, can clink her glass against his and throw her head back with laughter at a joke he’s telling her. As if aware of her watching him (and perhaps he is; Gambit's never been forthcoming about the full extent of his mutant powers), he turns to look at her and raises his hand in acknowledgement. She smiles at him nervously, but he doesn't return it. Madelyne says something to him, and he shakes his head, sips at his drink.
She doesn't need Madelyne’s powers to know why. Magneto is striding across the ballroom in her direction, leaving Emma Frost to say something to Sebastian Shaw. Old men and their little indulgences, she half-reads from her lips, half-guesses from the amused look on her face.
“Rogue, you look exquisite,” Erik reaches for her hand, and she lets him take it. His hands are warm and firm, the palms callused, a faded scar on the back of the right. He lifts hers to his lips, plants a kiss behind her middle knuckle. She closes her eyes, imprinting the sensations on her memory. Skin-on-skin. She’ll never take it for granted, never get used to it.
“Come, my dear. Our people await."
As he speaks, she sees the years stretch out in front of her. She’ll rule Genosha alongside him by day, have a voice in shaping the future of mutantkind, move them onto the golden path that Xavier always imagined for them. She’ll share his bed by night, bear their children, lead a new dynasty into the future. They’d call their first son Charles. It’ll be a good life. A life of service and purpose and maybe even happiness. A life where she never has to wonder whether she’ll be able to touch another person again. She just needs to say yes to him.
She takes a deep breath, straightens her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Erik. I promised this dance to someone else."
“So you’ve made a decision.”
"Remy’s right. Some things go deeper than skin.”
He releases her hand. The balmy Genoshan air feels cold against her skin. “I hope you are happy, Rogue."
"We will be.”
She kisses him on the cheek, memorizing the freshly-shaven smoothness of his skin, the hardness of the bone beneath it. Then, he’s gone, walking through the crowd and out onto the balcony, taking a future with him.
With a little regret, she pulls the opera gloves out of her purse and tugs them on. They reach up almost to her shoulders. They're the softest pink satin covered with black, floral stretch lace, but they feel more like a straitjacket after the freedom of bare skin.
As she approaches the bar, she hears Madelyne say, “You may be more dashing than you think.”
“With how swollen his head is? Impossible, sugar," she says with more bravado than she feels. She remembers Remy’s bright-edged anger in the hotel room, the way he’d tossed the Queen of Hearts into the fire to curl and blacken in the flames. I played the swamprat for you. He could send her away. He’d have every right to do so. She wasn't sure she'd forgive him if the roles were reversed.
He watches her, waiting for her to make the first move.
“Can I have this dance, Remy?"
Wary, “Official duties don't call, mon amie?"
"No. Turns out I’m not interested in being a queen.”
Madelyne laughs, "That's one thing we have in common, Rogue. That outfit!"
“You’d wear that black outfit if you got to be queen, Rogue?" Remy’s voice is light and teasing, but there is an edge to it, "Maybe you should go after Magneto, tell him you changed your mind."
“Remy, stop being an ass and dance with the woman. You clearly want to do so," Madelyne says before Rogue can reply, "She’s too stubborn to say that she’s sorry for how she’s treated you, but it's eating her up inside."
“Madelyne!" Rogue exclaims. Remy’s expression is a mirror of her own outrage, “It ain't nice to pry in people's heads."
“Oh please. I don't need psychic powers to read you two.”
Remy stands, straightening his white jacket and readjusting his scarf, “We should get away from Dear Maddy here before she starts talking about our mothers.”
Rogue winces, “Agreed. Analyzing my evil mama will take us clear into next year."
“About time you two kids figured it out,” Madelyne smiles. It’s a little sad, and Rogue knows she is thinking of Scott, of baby Nathan in the far future, of the life she handed over to Jean.
"I’m sorry that Scott didn't, chere,” Remy touches her shoulder, squeezes. Her flesh dimples under his fingertips. Skin-on-skin.
Madelyne waves them away, “Don’t waste this beautiful night on me. Go dance. I need to find Val anyway."
“You heard the lady, mon amie," Remy holds out his hand and she takes it, interlacing her pink-gloved fingers with his long, elegant ones. He leads her out onto the crowded dance floor, choosing the corner with the fewest people, though that doesn't mean much. For several minutes, they dance in tense silence, her stiffening any time another couple comes near them, him expertly maneuvering her away from anyone who’d bump into her.
Regretfully, “Maybe dancing wasn't a good idea, Remy.”
“Or maybe we need to start thinking more like mutants.”
"What do you mean?”
He looks upwards and she follows his gaze into the air, where several fliers are already looping and weaving in intricate patterns. She picks out Warren Worthington whose metal wings thrust powerfully out of his back and cut through the air with a crack, before her attention is drawn away by a young, pink-haired girl fluttering on pixie wings that scatter sparkly dust around her. Mutant dances for a mutant nation.
"Hold on tight,” she warns Gambit, wrapping her arms tight around his waist and rising up with him. As they hover, the chandeliers glitter around them, catching the lights, the fireworks over the city, and scattering them a thousand times over on the man in her arms. If he was a sun before, now he is a supernova.
She feels dizzy, drunk. Remy is closer than she has ever allowed him to be. She can feel his chest rise and fall against his, the subtle shifts of his arms and legs as he adjusts himself to their impromptu aerial act. She tilts her head upwards, until her lips almost touch his. She can feel his breath tickle her skin, warm and whiskey-tinged. She wants to run, to put the safety of distance back between them, but she stays.
She stays and she says, " I love you, Remy."
His eyes widen, and he smiles at her. A huge, genuine smile that goes all the way to his eyes. She's never seen that from him before. Remy’s normally all smirks and sly grins and flashes of teeth.
"I love you too, Rogue. Always have.”
" Sorry it took me a while to figure it out.”
"No need for apologies between us tonight, chere,” he replies, "So, we going to hang out here, or we going to dance?”
She feels his hand grab hers, and his weight shifts within her arms, and then he’s spinning outwards with the grace of a Cirque de Soleil performer. She lets him hang in the air for a moment, and then pulls him back into her, holding him tight again. Together, they make up a dance all their own, all acrobatic tricks and dips and whirls and delicious moments of contact.
As she holds Remy close, both of them breathless and laughing, she realizes she has no idea what their future holds, whether they will be able to touch or whether its absence will cause everything to sour and curdle between them; whether they will be together for the rest of their lives, or choose to go their own way, or be parted by tragedy; whether they will make it to a white picket fence and 2.5 children; whether they even want that at all. But she has no regrets. She’s stubborn, he’s creative, and they're in love. They have time to work out the rest.
—
Magneto stands on the balcony, looking out over the Genoshan skyline. The nation he founded, the nation that he should be celebrating with the rest of the council tonight. Now, though, he needs a moment to just be a man, a man rejected by the woman with whom he had planned a future.
Does he love Rogue? In a way. She’s young and passionate and beautiful. She’s an idealist who tempers his cynicism and makes him want to be a better man. She makes him feel less lonely, as if there is one person in the world who sees him and understands who he is. But he had known true love with Magda, had been joined with her so tightly that nothing, even death, could truly sunder them. He knows he will never have that again.
Maybe it is for the best. She deserves to be loved as he loved his wife, with the kind of perfect love that he saw in Gambit's eyes every time he looked at her.
He shakes his head. He has spent enough time tonight being Erik. Time to be Magneto again.
Before he can turn away, a tear opens up in the air in front of him, a jagged rip against the light of the city and the fireworks over it. A man steps out of it. He’s a slab of muscle and steel, towering over Magneto by several inches, clad in battle armor with guns on his back and ammo belts slung around his shoulders. Magneto begins to reach out to the weapons with his powers, intent on turning them against his would-be assailant, but he stops. The man wears a yellow circle crossed with an x on his broad chest, and his brown eyes, the right framed by a black tattoo, are oddly familiar. Erik has seen them before. Recently, though he can't quite place where. It’s enough to convince him that he isn't an enemy.
“Magneto? She made a different choice this time. Maybe it’ll change everything else…” he fixes him with an intense stare, “We don't have time. You need to listen. Turn off the music. Evacuate everyone. It's coming.”