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Chapter Text

It was hard to be a mutant in a world committed to hating her. With every twist and turn, and every lightly trodden path she ventured down, Anna-Marie was continually confronted with that stark fact. From the moment her mutation had manifested, she knew that she would end up alone. In a world oriented around touch, she was a pariah. Not only because she had the wrong genes, though that was the primary reason hate groups like the Friends of Humanity hunted her and her kind like game animals, but also because her lack of ability to touch people left her bereft of the one thing everybody had… The ability to find her soulmate. 

When her mutation had manifested, there against that tree with Cody, she’d been terrified. She had watched as the life drained from her crush, the light dimming in his eyes, his skin becoming pale and waxy. She’d had no choice but to run away. Mutant rights, despite being lobbied for years, were still in their infancy. If the police got a hold of her, she had no idea what they would have done to her. What if she accidentally touched them? No, she knew that the best thing to do was to run away. She couldn’t hurt anyone if she was isolated from society.

That was how her mothers found her. Alone, crying and shivering in the wooded area not far from The Mississippi River, Louisiana just a stone toss away, over the river. She’d planned on escaping to the other state, her Aunt probably didn’t care that she had run away but there would be a manhunt for her anyway. The town she had grown up in was small, everybody knew everybody, and once they found Cody, they’d know to start looking for her. Anna-Marie’s life had been riddled with bad luck, from her mother’s death to her father’s absent behaviour. Her Aunt always said she was a bad luck charm, a beacon for the Devil’s fortune, she was starting to believe that her Aunt may have been right. 

Tears still drying on her face, Anna-Marie stumbled to her feet intending to find the closest crossing across the river, but something stopped her in her tracks. Living out in the country as she did, Anna-Marie was used to the creaking of trees and the chirping of crickets at dusk, but there was something else out there. She could feel it in the way her hair stood on end and her fingers started twitching. Hesitantly, she turned to look into the shadowed darkness of the forest at her back, eyes carefully taking in every detail.

Finally, just when she convinced herself that she was being paranoid, there was a flash of white. Stark in the landscape of brown and green. Gasping, she took a stumbling step backwards, fighting against gravity not to trip and become prey to some forest cryptid. 

Almost like magic, a woman appeared before her. Clothed in a white dress with an ornamental skull belt around her waist, hair redder than the deepest sunset and (most strikingly) dark blue skin. There was another woman too, though her cloaked form and golden mask were outshone by the startling appearance of the first woman.

“There is no need to fear, child,” the first woman said in a smooth, deep voice that screamed mature femininity and power. That was the sort of voice Anna-Marie associated with the powerful types of women who could get a man to do whatever they wanted. And looking at the confident and open posture of the woman before her, she did not doubt that this woman could bend any man to her will. 

“Get away from me!” Anna-Marie shrieked, “Don’ touch me.” 

“Calm, child, we have no intention of hurting you.” the second woman reassured her. Like the first, her voice spoke of knowledge and power, but in a more subversive way. A way that told you that you wouldn’t know you had been played until it had come to pass. 

“Who’re you?” Anna-Marie whispered, there was no way she could escape these strange women. They were clearly mutants, like her, maybe… The thought, though fleeting, passed through her mind that they could help her. They could keep her safe from the police when they inevitably came after her for what she’d done. But who would want to take her in? She was an accident just waiting to happen. One touch and she’d hurt whoever got too close to her. 

“I’m Mystique,” the blue one said as she stepped forward, slowly edging closer to Anna-Marie like she was a frightened animal. A fitting analogy. “This is my wife, Destiny. We’re mutants, like you, we can help you.”

Much of Mystique’s skin was on show, and it was for that reason that Anna-Marie noticed the name penned delicately in cursive on Mystique’s outer thigh. Irene Adler. 

“How do you know ah’m a mutant?” Anna-Marie muttered, still shrinking away from Mystique. 

“I have precognitive abilities,” Destiny said as she too stepped towards Anna-Marie, “I knew you would be here, I knew that you would need our help”

On her outer thigh, in the exact same place as her name was on Mystique, the name Raven Darkholme was written in a less flowing, but still delicate script. 

“What is your name, child?” Mystique queried gently. Without Anna-Marie noticing, the woman had snuck even closer. She was now only a few feet away, Anna-Marie could see that her eyes were entirely yellow and that she had raised bumps along her skin. 

With some hesitation, she replied, “Anna-Marie.”

Tutting and shaking her head, Mystique inched ever closer until Anna-Marie could practically feel her breath on her skin. It was pathetic, she thought, but simply being this close to someone made her shiver with both fear and delight. Already she missed the feeling of touching fellow humans.

“That’s your human name, my dear. The name our oppressors gave to you. You’ve been born anew. What is your name?”

For a moment, Anna-Marie sat in quiet bafflement, unsure what she could possibly say in response to such a sentence. But, at 15, she had seen the state of the world. She had seen their government offer mutants crumbs before viciously ripping those rights and protections away when an individual mutant made one wrong move. She’d seen the way the people in her town spat at the ground and called mutants abominations. Anna-Marie was dead. She’d died alongside Cody’s chances at living a normal life. 

“Ah’m…” she hesitated, it felt silly to say, but she’d always felt that way. Cody was one of her only friends in town, everybody else had labelled her as ‘that weird girl from yonder’. The label that the townspeople had given her was fitting, she thought as she looked into the luminescent eyes of the woman before her. 

“Ah’m Rogue.” 

In the three years since Rogue had been taken in by her mothers, she’d seen a lot. She’d seen governments all over the world make pro-mutant policies, only to retract them mere days later. She’d seen Magneto’s cause grow stronger and stronger in the underground mutant spaces that Mystique often took her to. She’d watched her mothers spout mutant supremacy rhetoric and she had agreed with them out loud, but internally, she wasn’t so sure if they were right.

There was no doubt that Rogue was angry. She was furious. She was angry at the world for treating her differently for something she couldn’t control. She was sometimes angry at her mothers for insisting that humans would never change and that mutants were doomed to be killed off lest somebody did something extreme, such as the measures that Magneto and Mystique often took. But most of all, she was angry at herself. There was an unrepentant self-loathing that hadn’t abated an inch since she’d put Cody in that coma. She knew that she’d had no choice in her mutation, just as she had no choice in her eye colour, but she still felt at fault. Aside from those times when she had used her mutation to benefit her mother’s schemes, tricks and agendas, Rogue hadn’t touched anybody, skin to skin, in three years. Three years without feeling the warmth of another person’s skin just for the sake of it.

It was maybe that, the fact that she hadn’t touched somebody properly for such a long time, that had resulted in her touching Carol Danvers for a few minutes too long. She’d only meant to touch her for a few seconds, just long enough to glimpse into her memories and take her powers for just long enough to complete her mission, but Carol’s skin on her’s felt so nice. It was like she zoned out. She could have sworn she’d only been touching her for a few seconds, but the number of memories that rattled around in her mind and the power surging through her veins told a different story. With a startled gasp, she stumbled away from the slumped body of Carol Danvers and quickly fled back to the safehouse. 

“Ah…” Rogue gasped as she stumbled into Mystique’s chest, “Ah didn’ mean to hold her that long.”

“What do you mean?” Mystique asked sharply. At that moment she wasn’t Rogue’s mother, but the famous mutant terrorist that governments had come to fear, “Is she dead?”

The very thought sent shivers down Rogue’s spine. Her knees quaked and her throat swelled at the notion. She wasn’t the strong, outwardly self-assured Rogue in that moment. She was cast back to that time, back to Anna-Marie, when her mutation had manifested.

“N-No. Ah don’ think so.” Rogue stuttered, “She was jus’... She was still breathin’. Ah think she’s still alive.” 

“That’s fine then, Dear. Whether she died or lived, you’ve done your part, hmm. Now, stand up straight, that’s right. Irene says that everything is going to plan. Tomorrow you’ll be attacking the Avengers so that we can free our fellow mutant brothers. You’ll need all your strength for that, won’t you, dear.”

“Yes, Mama,” Rogue muttered. Privately, she thought about the fact that she had more strength than she’d ever had in her life. Carol’s powers had settled into her body in a way nobody else’s ever had, they felt as though they belonged. The memories, however, were harder to contend with. Flashes of a life that wasn’t her’s. A life lived so far apart from her own. 

Yet, despite the uneasy and diminishing lack of ‘self’ that Rogue was contending with, she followed her mother’s orders. The next day, with the sun at its midpoint, Rogue descended on the Avernger’s headquarters, thus introducing herself to the wider community of caped heroes and vigilantes. 

It was almost too easy, at first. Who could say that they’d bested Captain America? Renowned fighter, master tactician and all-American hero? The victory over someone she had always viewed as unbeatable sent a rush of adrenaline pounding through her veins. She felt unstoppable as she ploughed through every hero who even thought to stand in her way... At least until she was faced with Wonder Man. With no way to overwhelm him with Carol’s strength and her absorption powers falling startlingly short, Rogue was forced to retreat. But she had gotten what she needed. The strength of the Avengers now resided solely in her body, it was time to break out the Brotherhood from Rykers. 

In quick succession, many things happened. The attack on Rykers failed, resulting in Mystique and Rogue retreating quickly. Carol Danver’s memories started to overwhelm Rogue, taking over her every waking and sleeping moment. That accident, stealing Carol’s life away from her but keeping her alive, haunted Rogue in a way that Mystique simply couldn’t understand. Her mother was ruthless, she was willing to do anything to keep her family safe and further the mutant agenda, but Rogue wasn’t like her mother. She wanted people to be safe and she wanted mutants to be respected, but the path her mother was leading her down was simply one she couldn’t continue to traverse. Not when the guilt of what she’d done to Carol haunted her. It got to be too much. Rogue knew she couldn’t live another day like this. Her mothers wouldn’t be happy, they’d be far from it, but she had known for some time that it was coming time for them to part ways. Which led to the third major event that happened to Rogue. She went to the X-Men.

They, of course, were far from happy. Rogue could tell that Cyclops was practically itching to blast her and Storm looked like she wanted to strike her down where she stood. Sat before her enemies, all glaring at her, she felt helpless. The only person listening to her was Charles Xavier. Mystique has told her that he was a sentimental fool, willing to hear any mutant or human out, even to the detriment of himself and his team. Ordinarily, Rogue might have agreed, but it was that exact sentimentality that was keeping her from being thrown out on her ass. Or worse. 

The whole ordeal was tiring. Carol Danvers came back and attacked her. Storm and Nightcrawler threatened to walk away if she was allowed to stay. The professor made a whole speech. Hit after hit. Event after event. Rogue was tired. She wanted her mothers. She wished to go back to a time when everything was simpler. When she was only a 15-year-old girl, about to have her first kiss. 

Lying in her new bed that night, surrounded by suspicion she rightly deserved, Rogue allowed tears to bead in her eyes. She knew she was destined for a lonely life from the moment she realised she’d never be able to find her soulmate without hurting them, but she had never felt the sentiment as keenly as she did at that moment. 

Chapter Text

Fighting alongside the X-Men was an adjustment that Rogue easily fell into. They were so different to the Brotherhood, though she supposed she should have expected that. There was a hierarchy, as there was in any group, but it didn’t feel as strict as the one she had existed in before. Despite being at the very bottom of the hierarchy, below even the younger Kitty Pryde, Rogue was not degraded or used as canon fodder like those who had just joined the Brotherhood. Here, she was not Mystique and Destiny’s daughter, she was Rogue, her own person who had to prove to everyone else that she was worthy of their help. 

Between training room exercises in which she was gradually adjusting to having Carol’s powers permanently and sessions with Charles Xavier to untangle the mess of memories in her head, Rogue was slowly but surely endearing herself to the various members of the team who came and went. It was slightly easier to endear herself to Jean Grey, afterall, the woman could sense that her intentions were pure and that she had left the Brotherhood behind for good. After Jean, Scott inevitably followed. The leader of the team slowly and cautiously started talking to her more and more outside of training sessions. Inquiring after her thoughts on various topics. 

Surprisingly, despite her distaste for her upon arriving, Kitty easily fell into friendship with Rogue. Perhaps it was simply having another teenager in the house. Where Rogue was 19, Kitty was 16. Ordinarily, 3 years felt like a large gap when it came to teenage years, but in a house of people in their mid-twenties and older, they developed a strange sort of kinship that Rogue had missed. She’d never had an abundance of friends before her mutation developed, but finally being around another girl close to her age, as opposed to her mothers who were heaven knows how old, was refreshing. 

“I’m still mad at you for what you did to Carol, you know.” Kitty said rather out of the blue one day after Rogue had been with the X-Men for a few months, “It was a shitty thing to do.”

“Yeah, ah know.” Rogue muttered, she tried to focus her attention on the racing game in front of her, lest her eyes tear up with frustration at being reminded of her less-than-heroic actions, “Ah don’ blame you for holdin’ a grudge, Kitty. Ah jus’ hope ah can show you that ah don’ wanna be like that anymore.”

“I believe you, Rogue. It’s just going to take time for everyone to trust you. I… I am sorry about how Logan and Storm are treating you.”

“There ain't much ah can do ‘bout it now, is there? They’ll either learn to get along with me or not.” Rogue shrugged, but she couldn’t help the unwelcome pit that opened in her stomach. 

There were only three things that Rogue didn’t like about working with the X-Men: Storm, Wolverine and Nightcrawler. She could put up with Charles’ probing if it meant Carol’s memories finally left her head, what she continued to struggle with was the animosity that practically oozed from her three teammates whenever they were in a room together. 

Wolverine, at least, she could understand. Logan was generally untrusting. She knew that it would take time for him to adjust to her, she knew that she would just have to wait and show him that she could be trusted. Jean had assured her that it would happen eventually. Once you got on Logan’s good side (usually via some sort of life-or-death situation) he was fiercely protective of you. 

Storm, she knew, was fiercely loyal to all of her friends, and it just so happened that Rogue had messed with one of them. There really wasn’t much she could do to become friendly with Storm until Carol gave her the chance to apologise. She could see that Storm was begrudgingly impressed with her actions out in the field and her devotion to changing, maybe she would crack her sooner rather than later, but Rogue wasn’t holding out hope. 

Finally, there was Nightcrawler. Destiny’s son whom she had abandoned in the German forest. Logically, Rogue could see why he might resent her. For three years, his mother had treated her as her daughter, doting upon her between bouts of criminal behaviour and calls for mutant supremacy. She had been granted the maternal love she was sure he felt was rightfully his. And yet, despite the logic of the situation, she couldn’t help but feel bitter. It wasn’t her fault that Mystique and Destiny had seen fit to take her in when she was at a low point. She hadn’t asked to be treated as their daughter, they had simply done it. In them, she had found the family she couldn’t have with her aunt and her father, and that was something she would never apologise for. Not to the X-Men at large, and not to Nightcrawler. She didn’t agree with her mums, but she would continue to love them. That’s what family was. 

After 2 months of muttered remarks and sharp glares from Nightcrawler, Rogue had finally had enough. Her confidence had soared during her time with the Brotherhood, where before she would back down from a fight, now she faced it head-on. 

“Kurt.” Rogue called as the team exited the Danger Room, “Can ah talk to you?”

Rogue saw the annoyance flair in his body language, she saw the clenching of his three-fingered hands and the shine of apprehension in his yellow eyes. Sometimes, when she looked into his eyes, Rogue saw Mystique looking back at her. It was uncanny seeing as his mother was Irene. 

“What do you want, Rogue?” Kurt asked, the annoyed tone in his voice caused Rogue to pause for a second before powering on. She needed to clear the air between them if she was going to be fighting alongside him. She didn’t expect them to become best pals, just… Amicable. 

“Look, ah know you don’ like me, but ah think we need to talk this out.”

There was a brief pause in which Kurt looked at her with his iris-less eyes, face a complicated mixture of emotions, before he nodded silently and gestured for her to lead the way. 

With a deep breath, Rogue led him towards the garden, fiddling with her gloves all the while. Finally, when they were sat on the ledge of the fountain, Rogue directed her gaze back to Kurt and took a deep breath.

“Ah know you have plenty o’ reasons to not like me, Kurt.” Rogue began, “After what ah did to Carol ah’m as surprised as you that Charles even let me in. Ah think you know that ah regret that, ah’m being punished every day for that.”

Here, Rogue paused and looked deeper into Kurt’s face, analysing the minute tells and ticks that Mystique had taught her about. She saw the way his tail flicked nervously and the way his fangs dug gently into his bottom lip.

“But ah don’ think that’s the only problem you have with me,” Rogue continued, “Ah know that your mama is Irene. Ah know that… She abandoned you. And ah’m very sorry ‘bout that, but ah didn’ ask for them to pick me up and call me their daughter. Ah was alone after developing my mutation, and they’re the ones who found me and took me in. Ah don’ know why she did what she did, but if you’re thinkin’ it's cause of how you look, it ain’t. You gotta know her soulmate is Raven, ah don’ think Irene is too fussy about whether someone is blue. Look, ah’m not askin’ you to love me an’ call me your sister or whatever, but ah didn’ do nothin’ to deserve your animosity for this one thing. Everythin’ else you can be upset about, but not this.”

Kurt was silent for a second. He firmly faced away from Rogue, but she could still see the conflicting emotions working on his face. Anger. Frustration. Sadness. They warred across his features before finally settling into careful neutrality before he turned back to her. 

“I am thankful, Rogue, for your apology about Carol, but do not presume to guess about my emotions concerning my mother.” his German accent grew in strength as he spoke. His agitation was clear. 

“What else do you want me to do, Kurt?” Rogue huffed, “Ah know that you lot don’ like me. That’s clear as day. But at least Storm is slowly warming up to me an’ Logan ain’t practically growlin’ at me every time he passes me in the hall. You’re the only one that treats me like I’m still the enemy, an’ ah’ve got it on good authority that you don’ hold grudges near as long as Storm or Logan.” 

“Mein Gott!” Kurt exclaimed, “You don’t give up, do you?”

“It ain’t in my repertoire, no.” 

“Maybe I am bitter about Destiny's treatment of me, but that doesn’t mean I want to talk about it with you!”

“Well then, stop treatin’ me like ah replaced you then! Cause ah’m gettin’ tired of it, Wagner!” Rogue hopped off of the fountain and stomped inside, being sure not to touch any of the students she passed. 

Rogue’s first months with the X-Men took some adjustment, but she could confidently say she felt the most like herself since the time before she’d kissed Cody. 

Time passed. Rogue’s hair grew out, she passed out of her teenage years and into her twenties, her control over her new power grew and Carol’s memories rarely popped up in her mind anymore. After her conversation with Kurt, things started to improve. At the start, he was by no means the smiling, playful imp he was with every other X-Men member, but he had stopped glaring at her quite so much and they occasionally exchanged pleasantries after training. That was all Rogue asked for. All she wanted was to be tolerated and not hated by her fellow teammates, and that seemed to come to fruition within the first 6 months of her stay. Storm warmed up to her and started treating her with the same familiarity she offered everyone else. Logan stopped sniffing her (un)subtly, finally gracing her with his gruff respect after a particularly eventful fight 5 months into her stay. 

Standing in the crater-ridden field, hair whipping around her face, Rogue looked at the robots she’d finally bested. Some of many from a battalion that the newest anti-mutant extremist politicians had funded. Half of the team stood around her, also panting with exertion after a fight that had lasted half the day. 

“Good job, bub.” a gruff voice sounded from behind her.

Wiping the sweat from her forehead, Rogue turned to look down at the approaching figure of Wolverine. “Thanks, Logan. You were pretty good out there as well.” 

“‘Course I was. I’ve been doing this for longer than you could ever know.” There was a sort of melancholy that Logan always seemed to carry in his frame. Rogue didn’t know his entire story, she wasn’t sure if anybody did. Including Logan. What she did know was that he had been experimented on by the Canadian government, that he didn’t look his age (much like both her mothers) and that he had lost most of his memories. 

“Yeah, ah heard.” Rogue hummed, “Got any plans for this evenin’ then?” 

It was a somewhat awkward question. Rogue struggled to exist in silence, an ailment that she was sure Logan didn’t suffer with. For all that she avoided people out of fear of hurting them, Rogue was a personable woman. She strived for interaction. She wanted to speak, laugh and touch people. She thought that, perhaps, Logan could understand that feeling. Maybe he didn’t strive for connection as much as she did, but like knew like. He was scared to get too close to people as well. Maybe he didn’t rob them of their lives by simply touching them, but his mutation combined with his history didn’t lend many favours where relationship building was concerned. 

“A six-pack, a nice cigar and solitude,” Logan responded shortly. He wasn’t being malicious in his brevity, Rogue was sure of that. It was an improvement, all the same, from the grunts he usually used to communicate with her. 

“Sounds nice. Think my bathtub is callin’ my name. Nothin’ better than a hot bath to ease the aches of battle.” 

A grunt of agreement and then silence again. This time, however, the silence was more comfortable. An understanding had passed between the two mutants who sought seclusion. They understood each other.

“Rogue, take the left. Sinister is sure to be here somewhere.” Cyclops ordered. Rogue nodded immediately and stormed down the left tunnel. 

They had heard some weeks ago that Mr Sinister was inhabiting some old tunnels under New Orleans for unknown reasons. Rogue hadn’t often come across the man, aside from when she’d caught a glimpse of him after he’d had a meeting with Mystique a few weeks after she’d been taken in. Just the sight of the pale man sent goosebumps racing down her limbs, but she couldn’t let the memory of that fear stop her now. 

Being back South again was refreshing. That’s not to say that she didn’t enjoy her time in Westchester, but hearing that southern twang again set her heart right. Louisiana, especially New Orleans, was different to the rural Mississippi she was used to. It was louder and more colourful, but the charm and friendliness of the people were still the same.

Shaking her head slightly, Rogue focused back on the mission. They’d heard somewhere through the grapevine that Sinister was back to his old ways of experimenting on mutants. Ever since the Morlock Massacre, Sinister had been one of their top priorities. If he was down in these tunnels still, Rogue was sure that they’d find him. However, she privately thought it would be best if one of her teammates found him because she wasn’t sure what she’d do if she got her hands on him.

The smell of damp and iron filled her nose as she ventured onwards. She was eternally thankful that the smell of raw sewage was absent, if not extremely faint. There were a lot of things Rogue could deal with, but human excrement was not one of them. 

The sound of footsteps suddenly reached her ears. They were nearly silent despite the echoing quality that every noise gained in these cavernous tunnels. They were the footsteps of someone who didn’t want to be heard and was used to going unnoticed. Crouching low to the ground and taking a balanced stance, Rogue kept herself close to the wall, inching forward with every footstep that sounded in hopes of disguising the sound of her movement. 

Just as she reached the corner, ready to round it and attack, the air shifted. Something deep within her instincts told her to duck and not one to question herself, Rogue followed immediately. It wasn’t a second before the wall where her head had exploded into rubble. She didn’t waste any time being startled, her time in the danger room and out on the field had trained her to react under many different circumstances, including (but not limited to) nearly having her head blown up. 

Her leg struck out in a sweeping motion, scarcely connecting with those of her assailant. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to upset his balance ever so slightly. With an upward kick to the man’s jaw, Rogue flew upwards to face the man who had seen fit to try and blow her head up. Hovering slightly above the ground, Rogue beheld her assailant and her breath stopped in her chest. 

The first feature her eyes were immediately drawn to were his eyes. Black sclera and luminous red irises made her heart flutter something fierce in her chest. Tousled brown hair that reminded her all too much of the heartthrobs that every girl at her high school squealed about. Before her, rubbing his jaw with a disgruntled look on his face was the most attractive man Rogue had ever laid eyes on. The circumstances were less than ideal, to say the least. 

“Ah’d say ah ain’t ever known a femme to have such a strong kick,” the man said in a strong cajun accent that made Rogue’s heart skip a beat in her chest. Never had she found someone’s voice so appealing. It was almost annoying how attractive she found him. “But ah’d be lyin’ straight outta my ass.”

“There’s plenty more where that came from.” Rogue threatened. With clenched fists, she tried her best to look past her attraction and confront the facts. There was a mutant, for she was sure that the explosion had been his doing somehow, who was skulking through the tunnels of New Orleans. Even without the knowledge that Sinister was down here somewhere, the circumstances were extremely suspicious. She’d known mutants to work with Sinister before, including her mothers.

“Ah haven’t got any doubt 'bout dat, ma dame,” he winked at her. “Now how ‘bout you let me up, Chère? Hmm? Ah'm sure dat there’s been some sorta misunderstandin’.”

Clenching her fists tighter, Rogue took a threatening step towards the man, “Ah don’ know, has there? Your mighty suspicious runnin’ ‘round down here. Cause ah know for a fact Mr Sinister is runnin’ through these tunnels.”

“Oui, dat he is, Chère.” the man said as he slowly stood up, hands out in surrender, “An’ ah’m not workin’ fo’ him.”

“Alrigh’, who’re you then?”

With a sweeping bow, the man took Rogue’s hand and placed a lingering kiss on her gloves. A blush ignited on her cheeks, she hadn’t even noticed him inching close enough to take her hand in his.

“How rude of me.” the man chuckled, “De name’s Gambit. But you, Chère, can call me Remy LeBeau. An’ what is de name of my beautiful attacker?”

With flushed cheeks, Rogue pulled her hand out of his, “Ma name’s Rogue.”

Chapter Text

They didn’t find Sinister in the various tunnels of New Orleans, but they did walk away with an extra passenger on the jet. 

When Rogue had returned to the meeting point with Gambit in tow, the other X-Men had been rightly curious about the mysterious, dark-eyed mutant. It was almost as if the man had no self-consciousness. Even in the face of Wolverine’s suspicious posturing and Jean Grey’s unsubtle questioning, he smirked, winked and flirted without abandon. Rogue was by no means a meek woman, but even she wouldn’t be brazen enough to act like Gambit was. And yet, despite her simmering annoyance at his blase attitude, Rogue couldn't help the heavy attraction squirming in her chest. She knew it was purely physical. She didn’t know the man in any capacity, how could she claim to have any emotions for him beyond admiration for his charming smile when she’d scarcely had a conversation with him?

Deeming Gambit acceptably innocent, Cyclops invited him back to the mansion. It seemed as though whenever they came across a wild mutant they extended an invitation to come back to the house with them. Thankfully, most people declined. Charles may have money, but Rogue was sure he didn’t have enough money to constantly expand the X-Mansion to facilitate every mutant they stumbled across. Gambit accepted the invitation with an indifferent shrug and a claim that he had nothing better to do. Rogue would be inclined to believe him if it hadn’t been for the slight bunching of his shoulders. He was running from something, she was sure of it.

As was normal, the jet home was a hubbub of debriefing, joking with Kitty and keeping a keen eye on the newest mutant in their roster. Gambit had no compunction about inserting himself into the conversations around him. He joked with Nightcrawler easily. He poked at Wolverine without getting stabbed (a miracle). He immediately got along with Storm like a house on fire. Rogue knew that their circumstances were vastly different, but she couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous that this man was doing in an hour what took her months of work. 

“Ah’ve been hearing ‘bout you for a long time,” Gambit said, addressing the group as a whole, “But Gambit didn’ t’ink he’d cross paths with the almighty X-Men.”

“You seemed pretty quick on the draw earlier,” Rogue muttered, “Ah’d assume you’ve got some experience fightin’ or somethin’.”

“Or somethin’.” he winked at her again, mirthful eyes alight with a brand of mischief that Rogue knew was trouble, and yet she was drawn in regardless of her good sense. 

Xavier welcomed Gambit with open arms, as he did most mutants (including those who had tried to kill him). He offered Gambit a knowing smile in the way Charles did. He promised that he didn’t peak into their heads without permission, but Rogue wasn’t so sure. There was only so much he could pass off as ‘intuition’.

“Welcome, welcome, Gambit.” Charles said, arms held wide in welcome, “You are more than welcome to stay for as long as you see fit, all we ask is that you lend your… expertise when we ask.”

“O’course, mon ami. Ah’d be more than willin’ to lend mah expertise whenever you see fit.”

“Marvellous. Rogue, my dear, why don’t you show Gambit here to the room opposite yours? It should be made up from the last time someone came to visit.” Charles nodded his head in the direction of the staircase, a clear dismissal to everyone in the room aside from the team leader.

As they passed each other, Kitty offered Rogue a giggle and a 'sly' wink. She’d been around the younger girl for long enough now to recognise the action as Kitty’s attempt at teasing her. Like many teen girls, Kitty could be a bit romance crazy. She giggled at every attractive person who passed her by. She’d tried to lure Rogue into her activities, but Rogue’s interest was always minimal. The knowledge that she could never touch doused any flames of attraction she usually felt. So what was so different about Gambit? 

“Lead the way, Chère,” Gambit said, piercing eyes glued firmly to her face. Rogue had blushed more in the last few hours than she had in years. She could already tell that having Gambit around was going to take some getting used to. 

As she led him through the halls, she kept up a running commentary about the school and the different facilities that one could find. She mentioned the basement-level facilities such as the training room and Hank’s lab, but neglected to show him. All she wanted was to get out of her sweaty clothes and allow her skin to breathe, something she couldn’t do whilst around people. Throughout the tour, Gambit made several noises of interest but otherwise didn’t say anything, seemingly content to follow Rogue’s lead. 

“An’ here’s your room. There’s an ensuite bathroom. The rooms are pretty spacey.” Rogue gestured to the door opposite her’s, trying to keep the disgruntlement at having the new recruit roomed opposite her out of her voice.

“T’anks for the tour, ma dame.” again, Gambit took Rogue’s hand in his own and pressed a lingering kiss to her glove, eyes firmly glued to hers.

“Are you always such a flirt, Gambit? Or are ya just puttin’ it on for me, hmm?” Rogue willed the blush from her face, instead exuding the sort of feminine confidence that her mother often did. 

“Thought ah told you to call me Remy, ma chère. Gambit is always flirtin’ but he only put in dis much effort when la femme is especially beautiful.”

“Well, you can stop ‘cause you ain’t gettin’ anywhere with me.”

“Never say never, Chère.”

Shaking her head, Rogue took her hand back and walked over to her door, intent on being out of the man’s heavy sight as soon as possible.

“Hate to see you go, love to watch you leave, belle.” 

Rogue rushed into her room, head down in an effort to keep her giddy smile from his gaze. Unconsciously, she brought her gloved hand to her lips. She was in trouble. 

The next few days were full of the team slowly getting to know their new teammate. Through several conversations with both Gambit himself and gossip from Kitty and Jean, Rogue learned the following things: 

1. Gambit was 22 years old and had lived in New Orleans his entire life. 
2. He had been evasive about his past, about the only thing they knew about him was that he was a Louisiana native, born and raised.
3. He truly was an egregious flirt, as shown by their trip downtown the weekend after he started living in the mansion. 
4. He was an amazing cook, though his food was a bit too spicy for the likes of Jean. 
5. His mutation was to kinetically charge inorganic material.
6. He hadn’t found his soulmate.

Rogue told herself that it didn’t matter that he hadn’t found his soulmate. It wasn’t like she was his soulmate, she couldn’t have one given the cursed nature of her mutation. But a part of her, small and yearning, hoped that maybe they were fated to touch. Fated to belong to one another, mind, body and soul. It was the part of her that lingered in that time before her mutation kicked in, the part of her that believed she was still capable of normal human interaction. She often shut that part of her out. Pointless hope would get her nowhere.

“Hi, Rogue, how are you today?” Jean asked as she came into the kitchen. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, indicating that she’d just been working out in the gym. Her burgundy vest was just low enough to reveal Scott’s handwriting on her clavicle. His name was tattooed just above her heart.

“Ah’m doin’ fine, Jean. Jus’ lost in thought.” Rogue muttered, struggling to pull her eyes away from the sign of her team leaders’ love. 

“I get what you mean. The last few weeks have been crazy. With Sinister and accepting Gambit onto the team. That man is some work, but he’s nice.” Jean chuckled kindly. 

“You’re tellin’ me,” Rogue laughed along, “Ah don’ think ah’ve ever met a man quite as confident as Remy.”

“Oh, we’re calling him ‘Remy’ now, are we Rogue?” Kitty giggled as she stepped through the wall. 

“Don’ be scarin’ me like that, Kitty,” Rogue huffed, hand on heart, “An’ for your information, he told me to call him that. Ain’t nothin’ else to it.” 

“Sure…” Jean teased, pulling the word out in a disbelieving manner. “I don’t have to read your thoughts to know what you’re thinking every time he comes around, Rogue. It's written plain as day on your face.”

“Aww, hush, you two,” Rogue grumbled, “There ain’t no point in makin’ up scenarios now. He can flirt all he wants, but we all know nothin’ will come from it. Not… Not with the way ah am.”

Her voice took a melancholic tilt towards the end. Again, she was reminded of her inadequacies. 

“Don’t say that Rogue,” Kitty wrapped her arms around her shoulder, careful to keep their faces apart as she leaned down to peer into Rogue’s eyes, “Any man would be lucky to have you. You never know, you could be soulmates! Love always finds a way.”

At the word ‘soulmates’, Rogue’s eyes flickered once again to Jean’s clavicle. What she wouldn’t give for the chance to experience that.

As if sensing her gaze, Jean’s eyes flicked down to her soulmate mark and a gentle smile graced her lips. “I think you sometimes know even before the mark shows up. Scott and I didn’t touch until a few months into knowing each other. I… I was still scared I’d lose control of my mutation, so I didn’t let anyone near me. Mentally or physically. That didn’t stop him though. I think he was drawn to me despite my… standoffish behaviour.”

She spoke with so much love in her voice. Rogue had seen the love that Scott and Jean shared first-hand. They were by no means a perfect couple. They argued. They got jealous. They weren’t what many would call the ideal, but Rogue wanted what they had regardless of the flaws. 

“Whether it's with Gambit or someone else, you will find love one day, Rogue.” Jean said it with such certainty that Rogue almost wanted to believe her, “You are so deserving of love, Rogue. I know we all got off to a rocky start, but I’ve come to see the amazing, tenacious, beautiful woman you truly are. Happiness will find you.” 

She raised her hand to Rogue’s cheek, hand hovering ever so slightly away from her skin. Rogue wanted to lean in, to feel the warmth of Jean’s skin upon her own. She wanted to feel the touch of another human just because she could. But she couldn’t. She was relegated to feeling only the vestiges of heat that dissipated in the air between Jean’s hand and her face. She was condemned to live a life without touch. 

“Thanks, Jean,” Rogue whispered, aiming to give her a watery smile, “Maybe it’ll happen one day. Here’s to hopin’.” 

Sometimes, it felt like the universe was conspiring against her. Or perhaps it was her teammates who were conspiring against her. Either way, somebody was to blame for the fact that whenever they were sent out into the world to do the shopping, Remy was always paired with Rogue. The Professor had announced that it would be in everybody’s best interest if they all went to the mall downtown to ‘de-stress’. But, seeing as they attracted trouble like neodymium magnets, they were instructed to use a buddy system. Jean was paired with Scott. Kurt had grabbed Logan before Storm could snatch up the gruff Canadian. Seeing as she couldn’t take Logan, Storm had happily paired herself with the ever-exuberant Kitty. Which left Gambit and Rogue together. 

“Gambit is startin’ to t’ink de universe wants us together, Chère,” Remy smirked flirtatiously at her, “An’ who am ah to deny de universe what it wants?”

“Keep it in your pants, Gambit.” Rogue smirked in return. She’d long learned that the best way to fight Gambit’s flirtations was to simply let it roll over her. He wouldn’t stop unless she showed outward discomfort, and she wasn’t a good enough actress to pretend that she didn’t secretly indulge in his attention. So they were stuck in a loop of constant flirting without getting anywhere. She was too scared to let him in too close, and something was keeping him away from her too. She could see it in his eyes.

Rogue, despite her driving skills, had never officially earned her licence, a fact that she hoped to rectify at some point soon. That being the case, she was forced to let Gambit drive them to the mall. Privately, she could admit to herself that there was something nice about being driven around by the man. The open-top car allowed the wind to flow freely through her hair, creating a picturesque scene of a man out on the town with his lady. She wished that was the truth. 

Occasionally, she’d spy on Gambit out of the corner of her eye. She took in the sight of his tousled hair and the aviators he’d taken to wearing when they went out in public. Truly, it was a shame that the world was so prejudiced for they were depriving themselves of the beauty that was Remy LeBeau’s eyes. He hadn’t shaved that day, it would appear, because an attractive stubble lined his jaw. Rogue was sure that whether he was clean-shaven or rocking a bushy beard, she’d want Gambit all the same. 

“Ah don’ know ‘bout you, Chère, bu’ mah daddy always told me starin’ was rude.” Gambit took his eyes off of the country road for just long enough to lower his glasses and offer her one of his infamous flirtatious winks. 

Over the weeks that they’d been forced to cohabitate, Rogue had gotten exceedingly competent at stopping her blush from rising to her cheeks. She constantly found herself employing this new skill whenever Gambit graced her with his gaze.

“Ah wasn’ starin’,” Rogue defended, “Ah was… Ah just so happened to be lookin’ off into space in your general direction. Ah wasn’ starin’ at you.”

“D’accord, ma dame.” Gambit’s voice was mirthful. He didn’t believe her, but Rogue didn’t care. This battle of theirs, the will-they-won’t-they that they were embroiled in was enough to sustain her for now. What did the future matter when she had Gambit’s affections now? He would inevitably grow tired of her, and whilst his flame dimmed, hers would only grow. As was the cursed life of Rogue. 

“Ah’ve been wonderin’, an’ you can stop me if you’d rather not answer,” Gambit suddenly spoke after a few minutes of winding New York country roads, “But Rogue ain’t your real name, is it? Ah know some people ‘shed their human name’ or somethin’ when they got they mutations, but…”

Rogue watched  Remy’s profile. He always had a bit of a mischievous tilt to his lips, there was nothing that could be done about that. But his eyes. His eyes, at that moment, were earnestly curious. Genuine interest in Rogue, not as the southern belle or the X-Men’s hard-hitter, but her as a person, beyond the visage. 

Rogue had never told any of the X-Men her real name. She was sure they knew it. Just as she knew that Logan’s birth name was James, they most likely knew her birth name. You didn’t exist on such a close-knit team without some aspects of your past coming back, but there was something significant in actually sharing that past willingly. She had come to love everyone on her team like a family, escaping mortal peril regularly will do that to you, but there was something different when it came to Remy.

“Nah, Rogue ain’t mah real name. Ah took it when Mystique an’ Destiny picked me up.” Rogue hummed, finally directing her eyes away from Gambit and out of the windscreen, “All the people ‘round where ah lived used to call me it. Even before mah mutation kicked in they thought ah was odd.”

She darted her eyes over to Remy again. The earnestness had not disappeared from his eyes. 

“Anna-Marie.” she finally said after a lengthy pause, “Mah name is Anna-Marie, but ah ain’t heard nobody call me that in years.”

“Anna-Marie,” her name on Gambit’s lips sounded heavenly. Rogue scarcely contained herself from shivering in delight where she sat. “Ah like dat name. A beautiful name for an even more beautiful lady.”

And just like that, his flirtations were back, but Rogue didn’t mind. She didn’t regret telling him her name, in fact, it felt freeing to share such a private part of herself with him. A weight off of her chest. Anna-Marie and Rogue were two different people to her mind, but maybe they could come together to form the most authentic version of herself she could be. 

Thankfully, the mall was not exceedingly busy that day. Side by side, Rogue and Gambit walked through the mall, window shopping and exchanging small talk. After the conversation in the car, it seemed they had mutually agreed to stick to lighter topics. Rogue knew that, ordinarily, revealing one’s birth name wouldn’t be such a profound moment, but the X-Men were far from ordinary. Revealing her birth name felt like letting Remy in on her past. It felt like sitting together in front of a fire and sharing her deepest secrets. It felt like looking into Remy’s unobstructed eyes and admitting that she wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms, skin to skin, but knew that couldn’t. Admitting her name felt like admitting to the feelings that had wormed their way into her heart all too quickly. It was a vulnerability that she couldn’t admit to having. So, they didn’t speak about it. Something had passed between them, but neither one assigned it any import, at least not at the moment. Later, perhaps, down the line, they would truly sit down together and expose the secrets of their past, but that moment wouldn’t come that day. 

“Ah’ve been waitin’ for this book to come out,” Rogue smiled wide as they walked out of the bookshop, “The author was really teasin’ this one.”

“Ah didn’ take you for a mystery lover, Chère.” Gambit’s smile upon seeing Rogue’s carefree expression was small. A private smile that he rarely shared with anyone other than his family. “Ah’m more partial to romance, mahself. Can’ go wrong wid a bit o’ angst an’ passion.”

“Of course,” Rogue teased, “Ya seem the type to love romance books.”

Gambit turned to lean on the wall, bringing his glasses to the tip of his nose as he did so. The obvious flirtatious posture was clearly meant to precede some sort of utterance that would have Rogue fighting a blush, but he never got the chance to speak because the front portion of the mall suddenly exploded in a show of glass. 

Chapter Text

It seemed like they couldn’t go anywhere without trouble finding them. Rogue wasn’t a stranger to the Friends of Humanity. She’d faced them more times than she liked to remember as both a member of the Brotherhood and an X-Man. There was something more daunting about facing the Friends of Humanity than any of the other recurring threats she’d come up against. Whilst the Sentinels were big and sometimes hard to bring down, they weren’t human, they lacked true hatred. Fighting other mutants was always hard because they all essentially wanted the same thing, mutant acceptance. But the Friends of Humanity… They were truly hateful. Their hatred was driven by fear, but that only made it all the more potent. There was nothing that any mutant could do to change their mind. They saw mutants as an entirely different species that needed to be eradicated. 

“Everybody, stay down!” the group's ringleader yelled over the panicked screams and cries of the innocent, “We have been informed that a mutant was spotted in this mall, if nobody interferes, nobody will be hurt!” 

Out of the corner of her eye, Rogue saw a teenager in a yellow coat flinch heavily. She couldn’t have been older than Kitty, and yet she appeared so much younger as she shrunk into herself. Her anxious breathing and trembling frame were clear to see. 

Silently, hoping to not draw any attention, Rogue shuffled closer to the poor panicking girl.

“It’s okay, Hon.” She whispered as she reached the girl’s side with Gambit on her tail, “Ah ain’t gonna let them touch you, ok?”

“What,” the girl stuttered, “I don’t…”

“Shh. You’re a mutant, right? So are we, Sugah,” Rogue gestured between herself and Gambit. As if to confirm her words, Gambit briefly lowered his glasses, showing off his black and red eyes. The girl’s eyes widened slightly at the sight, but otherwise made no other sign of shock. 

“What’s your name, Sweetie.” Rogue hesitated for a moment, eyes scouring every inch of both her gloves and the girl’s jacket for holes before laying a gentle hand on her arm and rubbing it soothingly. “Ah’m Rogue and this here is Gambit.”

With a quiet voice full of trepidation and fear, two things Rogue could innately tell weren’t customary for the girl, the girl spoke. “Jubilation Lee. Everyone calls me Jubilee.”

“Well, Jubilee, you can bet your ass we ain’t gon’ let nothin’ happen to you, ok, ma ami.” Gambit leaned forward slightly, offering the scared teen one of his friendly smiles. Rogue saw Jubilee’s shoulder lower at the sight. 

Silently, the three huddled together, eyes intently following the various members of the hate group on the floor below them. From the balcony, they watched with bated breath as they scoured the faces of each person they came across, clearly intent on finding this supposed mutant they’d been sent out to hunt like an animal. Occasionally, one of the terrorists would call over their compatriots and hold a piece of paper up between them, looking intently at the paper and then back at the person in their sight before shaking their heads. It didn’t take long for Rogue to notice the pattern emerging. Every person they paid more attention to was East Asian. Beside her, she felt Jubilee shrink further in one herself, clearly she too had spotted the pattern. 

“Don’ worry, dey ain’ gettin’ you today,” Gambit whispered to the frightened girl, “Stay low an’ crawl toward dat man dere. The one with the unfashionable flannel.”

Rogue’s eyebrows furrowed at Gambit’s words. She whipped her head around to admonish him when she noticed that he was pointing at Wolverine who had at some point silently made his way to the front of the store he’d been in. He was crouched low, his attention directly solely on the three of them.

“Is… Is that Wolverine?” a wide smile briefly lit Jubilee's face. Her eyes flared with awe and her shoulders regained the bouncy quality they always had. However, that spark of excitement was immediately extinguished by the racket being made below them. 

“Yeah, that’s Wolverine. He’ll protect you an’ get you outta here,” Rogue affirmed, “You’re gonna be fine, Sugah.”

She offered her a reassuring smile. She meant her words whole-heartedly. There was very little that the Friends of Humanity could do to hurt them. Their impact was more emotional than physical when it came to the X-Men. 

Wolverine inched closer, just loud enough to be heard. “The rest have already gone back to the school. Nightcrawler is just inside the shop. He’s staying out of the way to keep the situation as calm as possible. I’ll get him to take her back to the school and alert the others and we’ll try and stop those bastards.” 

The plan was laid out succinctly, quickly and effectively. In synchrony, Rogue and Gambit nodded. 

Soon enough, Jubilee was in Wolverine’s capable hands, on her way to safety. 

“It seems like trouble be findin’ you no matter where you go, huh, Chère.” Gambit teased. Yet, despite the levity in his tone, his eyes were narrowed and focused intently on the scene playing out below them.

“Ah think it’s just part of the X-Man lifestyle,” Rogue chuckled, “Best get used to it, Sugah.”

They inched closer to the glass of the balcony as one, intently watching the terrorists move through the crowd. Just when it seemed nobody was going to get hurt, a terrified scream pierced the air. 

“Looky what we have here,” one of the uniformed men below sneered. Rogue watched in horror as he yanked a girl from her mother’s arms by her hair. Even from this far away, Rogue could see the way the small protruding nubs on the girl’s forehead would inevitably develop into antlers of some sort.

“Please! Please!” the girl’s mother cried, “Don’t hurt my baby! She’s just a girl!” 

“She’s an abomination!” one of the men roared, “You shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce if you’re going to produce vermin like this thing!”

Rogue watched, almost in slow motion, as the shouting man raised his gun. Her heart clenched and anger surged through her every cell. She couldn’t wait for everyone else to turn up, they had to intervene now. 

“Trust me?” Rogue asked.

“O’ course.”

“Get the girl and her mamma out, ah’ll deal with them.”

She didn’t have time to doubt herself, she grabbed Gambit by the waist and jumped over the glass barrier, landing securely in front of the gunman. The ground cracked as she landed and let Gambit go, he immediately snatched the child from the man holding her, punching him in the throat as he did so.

“Come, ma dame. Mah friend here will take care o’ dem.” 

Startled voices at her sudden appearance and choking mingled together, but Rogue didn’t pay attention to any of it. Fast as a dart, she snatched the terrorist’s gun from his hand and snapped it over her knee. 

“Ah don’ take kindly to people threatenin’ kids,” she growled. Her hand darted out, taking the man by the throat and lifting him in the air with ease.

 Immediately, 15 guns focused on her, some of them shaking slightly with fear. That was one of the things that Rogue hated most about groups such as the Friends of Humanity. Most of them were cowards. They didn’t expect to confront mutants who could fight back. They preyed on the weak and then shit their pants when the tables were turned. 

“Put him down, muttie scum!” one of the more courageous terrorists hissed. Though Rogue supposed if he was truly brave, he wouldn’t be hidden behind a gun.

“Get out then.” she responded calmly, still not lowering the thrashing man in her grip, “Ah think you’ve done enough here. Most o’ these people ain’t even mutants, you’re just scarin’ everyone for no reason.” 

Thankfully, the people surrounding her had used her appearance as the distraction they needed to escape. The Friends of Humanity didn’t bat an eye at their fleeing victims, all of their attention was focused on the threatening figure Rogue cast.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rogue saw a puff of smoke.

“Light ‘er up!” A voice yelled. 

Without hesitation, Rogue threw the man in her grasp in the air, trusting one of her newly arrived teammates to catch him and stop him from injuring himself (at least more than she had already inflicted on him). Despite the enhanced durability that she’d gained from Carol, Rogue was by no means bulletproof. She could take a few shots, but not an entire barrage from assault weapons. She dodged to the best of her abilities, swooping into the air and dancing a terrifying dance wherein one misstep could result in her untimely death. One. Two. Three. Three bullets hit her. One on her shoulder, one on her shin and one on her thigh. The bullets didn’t pierce her skin, but she knew the impact points would bruise soon. 

Swooping back down, Rogue took hold of two men, plucking them from the fight that had broken out beneath her. They barely got the chance to struggle before she was knocking their heads together with just enough force to knock them out. She dropped to the ground and manoeuvred her way through the fighting bodies, punching and kicking as she went.

 It didn’t take much effort on their part to subdue the anti-mutant terrorists. They were, after all, only humans who hadn’t armed themselves properly for a fight against the X-Men. Rogue was sure that they were out of the woods, but her luck was never that good. 

“Watch out!” Gambit’s voice yelled though the warning came too late.

A man had jumped from the ground, knife in hand, with the clear intention of stabbing Rogue in the face. Perhaps if her skin wasn’t so durable the attack would have worked. As it was, the knife glanced off of her face and the momentum of the downward swing caused the man to fall forward. Almost as if in slow motion, Rogue watched in horror as the skin of the man’s exposed arm came into contact with her face. 

The effect was immediate. They toppled to the ground together. Rogue gasped. Memories and hatred filled her body. She suddenly knew how to perfectly speak a little-known Polish dialect from a population in New York City. The man slumped over her, his energy sapped away by the leeching nature of her skin. 

She hated it, but the feeling of his skin on hers was almost addictive. Not only because of the torrent of new information but also because it had been so long since she’d felt genuine human warmth. And yet, she felt disgusted with herself. Maybe it was partially the mutant-hating thoughts that were practically screaming at her after being transferred from the man to her, but it was also the fact that despite the addictive nature of human touch, this man didn’t feel nice to touch. He felt like tar and everything rotten in the world. With very little effort, Rogue shoved the man from her and quickly crawled away. Her gloved hands frantically scrubbed at her face in hopes of ridding herself of the memories, emotions and feelings whirling around inside her body. 

They hadn’t been touching for all that long, she expected that the effects would wear off within one to two hours, but that felt like too long. Every second with this man’s personality battling her own felt like an eternity of imprisonment.

“Chère?” At some point both Gambit and Nightcrawler had come to kneel beside her, both looking at her with gentle concern in their eyes. “You alright dere?”

“I’m fine. I’ll survive. Should be gone soon enough.” Rogue hated this. She could hear it, the way she’d lost her accent and her voice had taken on a more gruff and dismissive cadence. Feelings she was uncomfortable with swirled in her chest when she looked at Nightcrawler. She didn’t like it at all. 

“You… don’t sound like yourself,” Nightcrawler said somewhat hesitantly. 

“Yeah. I’ll have it under control in a minute… Ah… I just have to settle down.” 

“Why don’ we get you back to de school? Gambit has de feelin’ dat bein’ alone might be helpful.” 

There was a reason, Rogue thought, that Gambit was such a great friend. He was perceptive. He could see her struggling in ways that not many others could.

“I think that would be best.” she huffed. 

It took two and a half hours for the mutant-hating terrorist’s influence to be purged from her body. For two and a half hours Rogue was subjected to levels of self-loathing that exceeded the already high levels she experienced daily. She hated what she was in a way that she didn’t usually. Despite the curse her mutation subjected her to, Rogue was proud of being a mutant. If there was one thing her mothers had instilled in her it was pride in being a mutant, even if her mutation was hard to deal with emotionally. 

As she wallowed in her misery, there was a tentative knock on her door. Unsure of who could be visiting her, Rogue called for them to enter.

“Rogue,” it was Kurt. He entered the room with an open posture and a comforting smile on his fae-like features, “Are you feeling better now?” 

“Yeah. Ah’m back to normal now. Glad to be rid of that man’s memories. He had some pretty nasty thoughts.” 

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Hesitantly, almost as though he was scared he’d be chastised, Kurt sat on the armchair in the corner of her room. His eyes flickered over her decorations. She’d framed pictures of her family and friends and placed them around the room sporadically. They served to prove to her that she was loved. She wasn’t alone, even if she sometimes felt like it. Band and film posters took up space on the wall beside her bed. Kurt’s eyes stopped on the framed photo on her bedside table. It was a selfie she’d taken with her mums. Irene and Raven stood behind her, Raven’s gloved hand resting on top of her head. They were all smiling widely at the camera, eyes alight with love and joy. 

“I often wondered what it would’ve been like to have been raised by Destiny,” he muttered, “I loved my foster mother and I enjoyed my time in the carnival until… Until that came to an end. But I wonder how different my life and my worldview would have been had I been raised by Destiny and Mystique.”

They both sat in silence for a few moments, digesting his words. 

“I know we have moved past it, Rogue, but I am sorry for how I treated you when you first arrived.”

“Don’ worry about it, Kurt,” Rogue smiled serenely at him, “Ah didn’ exactly endear myself to you, did ah? Naw, ah get why you treated me that way. Ah just hope we can get closer in the future. We have a connection, right? Ah think we could be real good friends. What was bein’ in the carnival like?”

For the next hour, Rogue got to know Kurt better. They spoke about their childhoods. Kurt reminisced about his circus days, he spoke in depth about how much he enjoyed flying through the air on a trapeze. Rogue recounted sneaking out of the house due to her Aunt’s strict rules. A budding form of kinship blossomed between them. Already the X-Men felt like family, but maybe her relationship with Kurt could be just that little bit more than what she felt for everybody else. 

The newest member of their mutant family, Jubilee, was settling in very well. As Rogue predicted, she was a very exuberant young woman. She generated what she had dubbed fireworks. Rogue could admit that the girl put on quite a show for them three evenings into her stay at the school. Somewhat surprisingly, Jubilee had taken an instant liking to Logan. She followed the gruff man around, bothering him incessantly with questions and demands to be taught hand-to-hand combat. Even more surprisingly, Logan didn’t seem to mind. Rogue knew that his gruff exterior disguised a secret softy, but she hadn’t expected his walls to be worn down so quickly. She supposed that it was only inevitable. Despite his bad smell, Logan had a paternal air about him. 

Jubilee was a joy to have in the house. They didn’t have many students at the time so there were so few lively teens to brighten the place. She and Kitty worked in tandem to bring all sorts of mischief to the older residents, from juvenile pranks to imposed film nights, it seemed the younger members of the team were taking team bonding to an entirely different level. And Rogue was happy about it. She was happy that she saw her friends more outside of enforced training sessions and bouts of saving the mutation population of the world from war machines.

The peace, she knew, would be short-lived. Something would inevitably pop up and disrupt the little bubble of tranquillity they were floating in. Whether the upcoming catastrophe was caused by outside influences or something from one of their pasts suddenly popped up to bite them in the ass, Rogue knew the peace wouldn’t last. So she enjoyed it whilst she could, relishing in every moment of calmness she could gather before everything fell apart.

Often, Rogue found herself in the Danger Room running solo missions. She knew it wasn’t true, but there was a voice at the back of her head that always insisted that if she lost her usefulness, the team would dispose of her. Yet, despite knowing the falsehood in the idea, she continued to push herself to her limits in training to prove to both herself and the others that she was worthy of fighting alongside them.

It was there, at the end of a simulation, that Gambit approached her. 

“Ah been knowin’ that you're strong, Chère, but every time ah see you in action ah’m reminded all over again,” Remy called from the doorway. His ever-present smirk shone like a beacon on his face, and like always, Rogue’s heart pitter-pattered in her chest at the sight. “Gambit likes a lady who can throw him ‘round a bit, you know?”

 “Ah’m sure you do, Sugah,” Rogue said with a very obvious roll of her eyes, a gesture that only widened the emerging smile on Remy’s face, “Ah’d offer to do it for ya, but ah think we both know that you’d enjoy it a bit too much.”

“Ah’m not sure ah’d be de only one enjoyin’ it, Chère.”

Rogue lowered herself closer to the ground and, consequently, closer to Remy. She got as close as she dared, mere inches of space left open between them. This close, she could see the faint stubble decorating his jaw, she could see the way his pupils dilated at her closeness, she could see the way he subtly bit his lip. She could see all of these small things, each one made her want to bridge the gap and seal their lips in a passionate kiss more than the last, but she couldn’t. She’d never risk hurting Remy, no matter how much she wanted to experience the soft caress of his lips against her own. 

“Keep dreamin’, Sugah.”

“All ah do is dream, mon amour,” he whispered. His eyes gained a sort of reverence that Rogue so rarely saw in him. His hand twitched as if he meant to bring it to her cheek and hold her. How she wished he would. How she wished he could.

“Me too.”

Chapter Text

The next year passed in a blur of stolen moments. She fought alongside the X-Men, saw her mothers again, got closer to Kurt (in whom she found a brother) and tried her hardest to contain her feelings for Remy. Every time their eyes met, every brush of her gloved hand to his shoulder, every meal they shared, every conversation they had, every time they interacted, Rogue fell deeper. 

She knew she was imposing this dreadful torture upon herself, but she couldn’t give in. She was not blind, she knew that he cared for her deeply. She could not say if he loved her, but she suspected he did. It was in the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. It was in the way he always looked to her first when he cooked for the house to see whether she found his cooking satisfactory. Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence, though, was the way he initiated touches. He had never touched her skin, no matter how much she wanted to feel him against her, but he had touched every decent part of her clothed body. He had taken her hands in his own and kissed them with the reverence of a man finding salvation in her presence. He had placed his hand on the small of her back as a sign of comfort when they’d faced the relentless diatribe of an anti-mutant billionaire. He'd swung her into his arms and carried her like she was his princess. Rogue was increasingly starting to believe that despite her mutation and the fact that they would never be capable of touching, Remy truly did love her. But, just as something was holding her back, Remy was hesitating to finally act on his desires too.  

“I don’t know why the Professor even tries,” Jubilee huffed, “They’re never gonna listen to him.”

The mansion was quiet nowadays. The government had come and ‘rehomed’ all of the children under their care the previous week. Ordinarily, they might have fought tooth and nail to keep the kids at the mansion, but there was nothing they could do. The order had been given officially by the US government, not some shady off-shoot that was working independently. The only reason Jubilee hadn’t been taken was that she’d been officially adopted by Logan 2 months prior. Rogue wasn’t sure how that had come to pass, she was 100% sure that the government would not have allowed known mutant vigilante Wolverine to adopt a child, but somehow it had happened. Thankfully, Kitty was 18 now so there was no fear of her being taken away. 

Rogue couldn’t help the hollow feeling in her chest when she thought of all of the kids who had been taken. She knew most of them had gone back to their families, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Some kids had nothing but praise for their families, they were only at the school because their families knew it was the safest place for them. But others, the ones that Rogue found herself identifying with, didn’t have a safe home to go back to. They’d run away from unaccepting families or they’d been abandoned. It was those kids she worried about the most.

“Better to try than to give up, Jubilee.” Kitty sighed. She was hanging upside down from the sofa, eyes staring sightlessly at the television. 

“Katherine is right, Jubilee,” Storm interjected from where she was carefully threading beads onto a silver strand. “The Professor has dedicated his life to mutant rights, he more than any of us understands the setbacks that we as a people experience.”

“It just isn’t fair.” Jubilee huffed. 

From her spot lounging by the window, Rogue snorted, “Life ain’t fair, Sugah. We jus’ learn that a little faster than everybody else.”

Silence descended on the room once more. Charles had told them to stay put, to abstain from missions lest they be catastrophic disasters so that they didn’t accidentally jeopardise his efforts to regain governmental trust. Rogue could tell it was taking a toll on everyone. 

Scott and Jean had taken the time to go on a short holiday to visit Jean’s parents. Jean had confided in Rogue that not having missions to plan or any way to lead the team aside from in the Danger Room would inevitably cause Scott to spiral. Rogue thought he was a great leader, he was steadfast and strong, but she could also acknowledge that Scott tended to get too in his head when things got out of control in a way that he didn’t like. 

Logan had disappeared somewhere. They were used to it. The moment the kids had been taken from the mansion, he had grunted something about cooling off before stomping from the house with furrowed eyebrows. Knowing him, he could either be running through the Canadian wilderness with wolves or strapped to a bomb prepared to launch into the stratosphere somewhere. Logan had enemies everywhere, and they all seemed to be set on testing the extent of his healing factor. Rogue was only glad that his birthday was half a year off otherwise she'd have to worry about Sabretooth attacking him, as was customary for Logan's birthday. 

Sighing, Rogue rolled out of the window seat and landed gracefully on the floor, “Ah’m gonna go on a walk. Bein’ locked up like this is makin’ me itchy.”

Faint sounds of goodbye followed her from the room. She didn’t know what she was going to do. Going for a walk through the gardens sounded like a good idea until she remembered how deserted they looked. Every inch of the mansion just reminded her of all of the poor mutant kids she’d looked after, day after day, who were now subject to the prejudice of the world. 

They hadn’t been banned from leaving, but it still felt like Rogue couldn’t step off the grounds without an alarm declaring her out of bounds. It was getting harder and harder to wake up knowing that her life was devoid of purpose. If she couldn’t ensure the safety of the younger mutants, and if she couldn’t go out into the world and face injustice, what was she useful for? Her adult life had been full of fighting and protecting. She knew nothing else. 

With that in mind, Rogue descended into the basement and walked the path to the Danger Room. Hank had disappeared not long before the kids were taken, he’d said something about conferring with Forge in Arizona about something. The technical terms and scientific mumbo-jumbo had gone over her head, but she was glad that he wasn’t around to see the desolate air the mansion had adopted.

The danger room was empty, as she’d expected. She wasted no time in jumping straight into a simulated fight. Sentinels bore down on her, intoning about mutant extermination in their monotone robotic voices. Anger bubbled in her chest and scorched her throat as she launched herself at each of the foes presented to her. She punched them to the ground with all her strength, she flew around their heads looking for the weak spots she knew every single one possessed, she kicked a boulder into the chest of one, she decimated each and every foe she was faced with until she was left panting on the floor, head in hands. 

“Ah be gettin’ the feelin’ that you’re always in this room, Chère.” concern coloured Remy’s voice so blatantly that Rogue felt a surge of guilt overwhelm the sparks of anger still moving through her body. 

“You will burn yourself out, my dear sister.” Kurt added.

Breathing steadily through her mouth so as not to misplace her anger, Rogue raised her head and beheld the sight of two of the most important people in her life looking at her with blatant worry.

“Ah’m fine.” she answered gruffly, wiping the sweat from her forehead with a bare forearm as she did so. Just the sight of them, only a few feet away, whilst her arms were exposed from wrist to shoulder caused her undue worry. 

“I’m not so sure.” Kurt replied easily. He took a step closer but knew to not get too close. Late-night conversations about the burden of their mutations, no matter how much they took pride in being mutants, had enlightened him to the all-consuming fears that Rogue carried with her every day. She’d already hurt one person she cared about, she couldn’t do it again. 

“Ah’m fine, Kurt.” Rogue reasserted firmly, “Ah’ve jus’ got a lot o’ extra energy. Ah’m not used to not havin’ anything to do.”

“I understand, Rogue,” Kurt placated gently, “But this is the 5th day in a row that you have come to the Danger Room. You are going to over-exert yourself.”

Rogue could see the undeniable logic in what Kurt was saying. Even if she had increased stamina and durability, the near-continuous training was taking a heavy mental and physical toll on her body. Yet, even so, she couldn’t bring herself to stop. Stopping meant more time thinking, and she couldn’t be left with her thoughts. The world was shifting again. Public opinions ebbed and flowed like the tide, never erring in one direction for too long before shifting back the other way. She hated the thought of all of those mutant kids, kids she couldn’t help but think of as partially hers, unprotected against the incoming waves of loathing that were sure to crash down any day.

Rogue hated the entire situation. She hated that the kids were unprotected, that she could see legislative changes on the horizon, and, most of all, that she hated what had caused this switch back to governmental crackdowns on her people. 

“You cannot blame yourself for actions that you did not commit, Rogue.” Kurt reasoned in that gentle voice of his. Rogue wanted to punch him for being so perceptive, but she knew that was unfair.

Rogue couldn’t help but feel guilty, though, despite Kurt’s words. It was Destiny, Mystique and Magneto who had kicked off this new surge of mutant hatred with their assassination of a well-respected governmental official. They had kidnapped him and executed him on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in a grand display. Magneto had kept the hoards of soldiers at bay whilst her mother, Mystique, lectured the world at large about the injustices of the system. She’d slit the official's throat, white dress stained red with his blood, and declared mutant supremacy. 

“Ah may not have committed them, but ah damn sure ain’t sorry they happened,” Rogue muttered just loud enough for the two men to hear, “Ah ain’t sorry that man is dead, he was doin’ things to us, to kids, that ah ain’t ever gonna be able to erase from mah mind… Ah ain’t feelin’ guilty ‘cause of what happened.”

No, she didn’t feel guilty that the man was dead. Behind his pleasant, pacifist mask lurked the type of evil that could only be born from Satan himself. Whilst the majority of the world saw him as a beneficiary of children’s rights causes across the country, mutants knew him to be the boogeyman beneath mutant children’s beds. He didn’t see them as people, so he saw no issue in taking mutant children and using them as he wished. Torturing, murdering, doing things Rogue couldn’t bring herself to think about. She wasn’t sad he was dead and buried. She had been on the verge of doing something about him herself, damn what the Professor said. 

What caused Rogue the most grief was that her parents had done this and they hadn’t thought of the short-term consequences. She was sure that Destiny hadn’t allowed either Mystique or Magneto to kill the man until the time was right for an opportune future to spring forth from the fountain of his blood, but that didn’t mean that the long-term success made the short-term distress any more palatable. Whilst that abhorrent man was dead, it didn’t mean there weren’t dozens like him within the government who now had prime access to all of her students, their primary justification being that mutants aren’t human. 

She felt a body get closer to her, a lot closer than she’d ordinarily be comfortable with given how much of her skin was on show. But… She needed someone to be close to her now. Even if not feeling the warmth of another person’s skin on hers caused every facet of her being to ache with longing, just the sensation of someone near made her feel minutely better. 

“Ah don’ feel very sorry either, Rogue.” Remy whispered into the still air around them, “Gambit t’inks you need some time away from here. Don’ argue. Me an’ you gonna go on a petite trip. Ah’ll show you New Orleans from de top dis time, oui?” 

Rogue looked helplessly towards her brother. In his blue face, she saw the worry that coloured Remy’s voice. He thought it was a good idea.

Hesitantly, Rogue answered, “Ok. Ah… Ah guess. Jus’ not for too long, okay? Ah wanna be back if the rest need us for anything.”

“O’course, Chère.”

After copious reminders to call them back if anything cropped up, Rogue finally allowed herself to leave the X-Mansion and hop into Scott’s car with Remy behind the wheel. She looked back as he drove them down the long gravel driveway, sad eyes glued to the ivy-covered house. It wasn’t until they crossed the estate boundary that her body finally turned around in its seat. 

“Don’ worry 'bout dem, Chère,” Remy reassured her, “Dey gonna be just fine without us for a few days.”

“Ah know.” her whispered response was almost lost to the wind, but Remy smiled reassuringly at her nevertheless. 

They elected to take a plane to Louisiana. As much as Rogue knew she needed the time away from the house, she didn’t want to be away for too long, and if they were to go on the ‘grand tour’ that Remy had planned, they’d need as much time in New Orleans as possible, they couldn’t waste 20 hours, plus breaks, on the road.  

Rogue hadn’t flown commercially many times. There was a time when she thought she went to Japan with her mothers, but despite the relatively short amount of time that had passed, the memory was vague and blurry. She was no stranger to the feeling of taking off in a plane, but there was something substantially different between flying commercially and flying in the Blackbird. Maybe it was the fact that in the Blackbird she was almost always either flying towards trouble or away from it. Or maybe that difference stemmed from the fact that the Blackbird wasn’t full of grumbling travellers and a screeching baby or two. Either way, it was vastly different from her usual flight experience. 

“You’re gonna love it, Chère.” Remy smiled genuinely at her, his eyes crinkling and his perfectly straight teeth peeking through. 

“Ah have been to New Orleans, Remy,” Rogue rolled her eyes, “In case you forgot, that’s where we met.”

“We met in the sewers, ma belle, dat ain’t the real Paris of the South. Ah’ma show you jus’ how great New Orleans can be.”

Rogue felt her heart swoop and squirm in her chest. Despite not being able to see his eyes due to the sunglasses in the way, Rogue could imagine the spark of joy that lit Remy’s eyes. She could practically feel the excitement oozing off of him in waves. 

“Ah’ll take your word for it, Sugah.”

Rogue couldn’t deny that New Orleans was a beautiful city. The warm evening wind whispered between the buildings, carrying with it the intermingling sounds of music, laughter and general city noises. Since leaving rural Mississippi, Rogue had grown accustomed to the sounds of cities, but she thinks she might like the sound of New Orleans the most. She was excited to see what the city looked like at night when the neon lights came to life. 

“Ah know that look, Chère. Dat’s the look o’ someone fallin’ in love with dis here city.” The smugness in Remy’s voice, Rogue thought, was entirely unwarranted. Sure he’d been the one to suggest the trip to his hometown, but he hadn’t personally made the city into the lively seat of music, southern charm and hospitality that made Rogue’s heart lighten with every step.

“Ah don’ know why you’re so proud, Sugah. I didn’ see you in the history books, buildin’ the city brick by brick.” Rogue teased. 

In response, she got a sly wink, the meaning of which she couldn’t possibly decipher. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to either. It wasn’t time for her to think and puzzle out every interaction she had, it was time for her to relax. It was time for her to let her hair down and allow the aura of the city around her to sweep her away. 

Remy took them to a hotel that was run by an old couple. They seemed to know him, given the way they exclaimed in joy upon seeing the red-eyed mutant. They hugged him close and spoke in such rapid-fire Creole dialect that Rogue couldn’t quite keep up. Rogue could tell by the well-loved furniture and the deep wrinkles in both owners’ dark skin that this was the sort of place that had been open for longer than any chain could claim to have been. It held a certain charm that you just didn’t find in places other than independently run businesses where the owners put in their all. 

“An’ dis is mah frien’ Rogue.” Remy finally introduced her after 5 minutes of catching up, “She needed a little time away from… From de business.”

“Nobody gets dat more den us, dear,” the woman said. Her voice was so motherly, it reminded Rogue of long-lost memories with her own mother. The feeling of her arms around her, the scent of her silken hair, the taste of her apple pie. 

“Now you be careful walkin’ round these parts with such a pretty femme on yer arm, Remy,” the man chuckled. The deep crows' feet at the corner of his eyes spoke of many years of chuckling and smiling, “Some man might jus’ come along and sweep her up. Or Bell-Donna will hear ‘bout her.”

Bizarrely, Remy let out a choked chuckle that Rogue had never heard the likes of before. He clenched his fist and subtly glared at the man, “We don’ need to be mentionin’ all dat, mon ami. Come on, Rogue, dis way.”

His hand hovered over the small of her back as he guided her past the front desk where the couple were standing giggling together. Rogue wanted nothing more than for Remy to just touch her, even if it was through several layers of fabric, but she also couldn’t help but feel thankful that he knew not to touch her without asking for permission first, even if it wasn’t a direct touch.

“What was all that about?” Rogue asked when they reached the room they’d be sharing. She wasn’t shy about the matter, they’d shared rooms before, both with the rest of the X-Men present and just the two of them. 

“What?” Remy asked. His attempt to act oblivious sorely falls short. 

“Don’ act stupid, Sugah, it don’ suit you.”

“Well, merci, for dat compliment.”

“You still haven’ answered mah question.”

“An’ what question would dat be, Chère? Ah'm gonna need you to be more specific.”

“You got all weird when that kind man mentioned someone called Bella-Donna.”

There was a pause in which Remy’s shoulders hunched slightly. He was facing away from her, she couldn’t be sure, but if Rogue knew Remy as well as she thought she did, then she had no doubt he was wincing slightly.

“She… She ain’t no one you need to worry about, Chère. De past is de past.”

As much as she wanted to push for a more concrete answer, she didn’t. Remy was evasive about his past. Clearly, some things had happened that he didn’t want to talk about, she supposed she’d just have to assume that this Bella-Donna woman was part of it. 

“Get changed, Chère. We gonna hit de town in an hour. Ah’m gonna make you have a good time whether you want to o’ not.”

Chuckling to herself, Rogue allowed thoughts of Remy’s past to slip away. That wasn’t why she was in New Orleans, after all. She was going to relax and enjoy herself. And nothing was going to stop her. 

Chapter Text

The evening air caressed her face as Rogue enthusiastically delved into the food before her. When Remy said he was taking her to the best restaurant in New Orleans she didn't know what to expect. Given their casual dress, she knew they weren’t going anywhere fancy, but she hadn’t exp ected to find herself down a brightly lit alley stuffing her face with some of the best food she’d ever put in her mouth.

“This is so good.” She said around the food in her mouth, manners and any sense of decorum long since abandoned. “How did you find this place?” 

Remy had been watching her eat with a smile on his face. She’d elected to ignore his staring. There was something about the genuine tilt of his lips and the sparkle of something in his eyes that had stopped her from speaking. It felt like being placed in the spotlight, like being showered in roses of adoration. Under Remy’s gentle gaze, Rogue felt loved and she didn’t want the feeling to end. 

“Gambit gotta keep some o’ his secret, Chère,” he teased, “Jus’ know dat ah got ‘round a lot when ah was a kid.”

“Ah’m sure you did, Sugah.” Rogue laughed after swallowing the final morsel of her delicious meal. “Ah’m sure that if ah went ‘round askin’ questions a few o’ the folks would be more than happy to reveal what a terror you were in your childhood.”

“You wound me, Chère,” Remy joked back, “What make you t’ink dey even knew ah was de one causin’ dem trouble.”

Rogue liked the sparkle in Gambit’s eyes. Seeing as he was facing away from the street, he’d elected to take off his sunglasses and subject her to the full extent of his piercing gaze. Even after all this time, looking into his eyes still caused a riot of butterflies to explode in her midriff. Mischief and a glimmer of something akin to adoration practically shone like a beacon from his gaze, warming Rogue’s heart with their gentle light. It was in moments like these that Rogue wished more than ever that she could just reach across the table, bare-handed, and feel Remy’s scruff against her palm. Lord knew she wanted to kiss him, but she knew that even the briefest skimming of her finger against his cheekbone would set her heart right. It would be enough to satiate her until the next time they touched, and then the next and the next. 

“Why don’ we take a walk?” Rogue suggested in place of declaring her feelings. 

“Ah t’ink dat is a grand idea.” Remy stood and gestured for her to step out in front of him “After you, ma dame.”

Laughing gently to herself and shaking her head at his antics, Rogue stepped into the street. Side by side with scarcely any space between them, Remy and Rogue set off in a random direction to walk off their dinner. 

The heat that existed in the small space between them soothed the ever-persistent feeling of loneliness that pervaded Rogue’s every living moment. Here with Remy, as he spoke at length about his childhood in New Orleans, Rogue felt content. Her worries about the turning sentiment against mutants were far from her mind. All that mattered, in that sunset-lit time of wandering the city, was Remy. 

“An’ ah couldn’ have dat, Chère.” Gambit waved his hand out enthusiastically, “So ah told him what was what an’...”

Remy suddenly paused, back stiffening where he stood beside Rogue, looking out on the Mississippi River. 

Rogue recognised that look. The way his eyes sharpened slightly and his head tilted ever so slightly to the left. Somehow, he had sensed a danger that Rogue wasn’t yet aware of. 

“What’s wrong?” she whispered. She tried to keep her body language relaxed so as not to alert any observing enemies, but it was hard to do when she didn’t know what had put Remy on the defensive. 

For a second, Remy didn’t respond. He kept his eyes glued to the river and his head tilted slightly with a look of concentration on his face. It was almost as though he was listening for something.

“There ain’t no point in followin’ us no more,” Remy suddenly said into the evening air, “Ah know your dere.”

With furrowed brows, Rogue turned to ask who Remy was talking to, though her question was answered before the words left her lips. 

“You're gettin’ sloppy, Remy,” the deep baritone of an unfamiliar man sounded from the shadowed recesses of a nearby building. Rogue watched as, almost like magic, a tall man with brown hair melted from the shadows. The smirk on his face was so reminiscent of Remy’s that she wasn’t sure what to think. He was clearly older than the two of them and he resembled her friend vaguely, but she wouldn’t have said that they were related. 

“Ah’ve known you were followin’ us since de moment we left de hotel, jus’ didn’ feel like ruinin’ mah evenin’.” Remy responded, his voice full of amusement.

“Like ah said, you're losin’ your touch, boy. Ah’ve been followin’ you since de moment you set foot in mah city.” Despite the, frankly, ominous words, the smile on the man’s face didn’t cause any alarm bells to ring in Rogue’s mind. Yet. “An’ who is dis petite femme dat you got with you here?”

If Rogue didn’t know better, she’d have thought that Remy’s cheeks gained a slight pink hue as he answered the man’s questions. “Dis here is mah… teammate, Rogue. She’s on de X-Men wid me at de moment. Rogue, dis is mah old man.” A pause in which Remy was clearly debating whether to give her his father’s name. A decision that was quickly taken from him.

“De name is Jean-Luc LeBeau, ma dame.” The man, like his son, had miraculously moved with absolute silence until he was directly in front of Rogue. He took her gloved hand in his and hovered his lips above it before pulling away. “Current leader of de Thieves Guild. Ah’ve seen you runnin’ ‘round wid my son here for de last year.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr LeBeau.” Rogue returned politely. Her Aunt’s lessons on manners were still deeply ingrained into her psyche. If an elder greeted her, it was almost instinct to return the greeting in kind with the correct dose of respect… Provided they were respectful towards her, of course. “The Thieves Guild? What’s that?”

“Nothin’, Chère.” Remy quickly jumped in, “Nothin’ you need to worry yourself over.”

Slowly, Rogue turned to Remy and raised a disbelieving eyebrow. They were both aware that it wasn’t smart to try and keep things hidden from her. If she wanted to know something, she’d find it out. It sent a thrill of delight down her spine to see him shrink slightly into himself at the sight of her reprimanding eyebrow. 

Turning back to Jean-Luc, Rogue asked again, “What’s the Thieves Guild?”

Ignoring his son’s non-verbal cues to stay silent, Jean-Luc leaned back against the railing they stood by and started talking. “De Thieves guild is like a secret society o’ criminals. As de name implies, we’re mainly thieves, but it was set up by de same person who set up de assassin’s guild. Ah’m de leader of de New Orleans Branch, but we all over de world.”

“Can’ be very secret if you're goin’ ‘round tellin’ everybody ‘bout it, can it?” Rogue chuckled to herself. 

“You right dere, ma dame. But ah was under de impression dat my son would’a told you ‘bout it by now, seein’ as he seems sweet on you.”

Jean-Luc’s eyes shone with a specific brand of parental mischief that Rogue had seen in both of her mothers’ eyes, as well as occasionally in Logan’s. He knew he was embarrassing his son, but he didn’t seem to care. 

“Maybe ah was tryin’ to build mahself a new identity, away from de Thieves Guild.” Remy exhaled through teeth gritted with embarrassment.

“You can’ fool me, son. Once a thief, always a thief. You still part o’ de guild.”

Rogue watched out of the corner of her eye as Remy’s face went through a series of conflicts. Anger at his father for revealing a secret. Embarrassment, as parents usually incur. Worry that she was going to turn on him and reprimand him for keeping such a big secret. A hint of relief that he could be even slightly more honest now. 

Rogue couldn’t lie and say that she wasn’t somewhat upset that Remy hadn’t shared the information with her voluntarily. But… She’d be a hypocrite if she got angry. She was a former mutant terrorist, she didn’t really have any right to condemn him for his illegal activities. 

“Chère…” Remy started, a certain hesitance that was so unlike him colouring his voice and features. 

“Ah’m not mad at you, Sugah,” Rogue asserted firmly, even if she occasionally liked to watch him squirm, she wouldn’t torture him with the belief that she was angry with him. “Ah’m sure ah’ve done way worse than you’ve ever done. Ah was a terrorist before ah joined the X-Men, remember? If ah judged you ah’d be a hypocrite.”

Some of the tension eased from Remy’s frame, though his features were still ever so slightly pinched. It had been minute, something Rogue wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been watching him so closely, but he’d flinched when she said she’d done worse. It wasn’t a flinch of fear, it was one of guilt. Her interest was piqued, but she held off on asking any questions. She had a feeling it was a conversation meant for a private place.

“Anyway, why are you followin’ us, Dad? Don’ you have somethin’ better to be doin’?” 

“Jus’ thought ah’d say hello,” Jean-Luc shrugged, “Haven’ seen you in a while.”

“Well hello an’ good-bye. We ain’ gonna be here long.” Remy said, “Ah wouldn’ wanna distract you from your work.”

“Alrigh’, ah can tell when ah’m not wanted,” Jean-Luc joked with a wink towards Rogue. “You tell me when you're next ‘round, alrigh’?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Remy huffed as he hugged his father.

“An’ if ah was you, ah’d be on the lookout for Bella Donna. Ah’d bet she already know you in town.”

With that final piece of advice, Jean-Luc walked away, quickly absorbed by the shadows of the evening. 

They stood in silence for a few minutes, gazing out onto the river below them. It had been unexpected, but Rogue was pleasantly surprised at having met Remy’s father. He was nice enough, if not prone to trying to embarrass his son. Despite his gruff facial expression, she could see that Remy had enjoyed the chance to see his father again. There had been very few times over the past year that they’d known each other where they had been apart. He mustn’t have seen his father since joining the team.

There was a stray thought at the back of Rogue's mind, one that she didn’t dare entertain out of fear that it would spiral out of control, and yet it pushed to the forefront of her mind regardless of her futile suppression. Jean-Luc seemed like he’d make a nice father-in-law. It was a stupid thought, of course. Remy would find his soulmate and marry them whilst Rogue was relegated to silently mourning her ever-present emotions. That was how her story was destined to go. 

“So, uh, who’s Bella Donna?” Rogue asked to distract herself from the thoughts of Remy marrying somebody else. 

He didn’t answer for a few minutes, but when he did Rogue’s heart rocketed into her throat. “Um, she’s my ex-wife,” Remy said slowly.

So much for distracting herself from thoughts of him being married to someone else. 

“But we’ve been separated since practically de moment we got married.” he rushed to add, “We were.. Childhood sweethearts, ah guess you could say. Married at 18, but den dere was dis whole mess wid de Thieves Guild havin’ a feud wid de Assassin’s Guild an’ it jus’ didn’ work out. Officially divorced ‘bout a year ago.”

Slowly, Rogue nodded along. It was times like this when she realised how little experience she had when it came to the field of romance. She could recite battle plans and strategies off of the top of her head like it was nothing, but romance was a mystery to her. Her only romantic endeavour before the all-consuming feelings she housed for Remy was her brief relationship with Cody, and that had ended awfully. 

“So, you weren’t soulmates then?”

“Nah, we weren’ worried ‘bout none of dat. We thought we loved each other… But ah think it was jus’ a more advanced version of puppy love. We were never gonna last.”

Rogue nodded silently. They stood together, the evening breeze rustling their hair and bringing with it the scent of the river, and simply enjoyed each others’ company. 

Their walk back to their hotel was long, slow and wandering. As had been the case throughout most of the day, Remy showed Rogue his favourite childhood hangouts, regaling her with story after story of his childhood exploits. Though, now, many of the stories contained elements of thievery and deception that Rogue was sure he must have been exaggerating. She could believe that he was a good thief, but good enough to break into the New Orleans Museum of Art to steal a painting at age 14? She wasn’t so sure she bought into that.

“It’s true, Chère,” Remy insisted, “Ah’m one o’ de best thieves in de guild. De whole reason ah was adopted by mah dad was because ah managed to pick-pocket him.”

Rogue felt an even wider smile light her face upon hearing this information. “You pick-pocketed your dad an’ he decided to adopt you?”

“O’course! It was impressive!” Remy defended himself jovially. Rogue couldn’t help but throw her head back in laughter. Undeniably, Remy’s childhood had been a lot more interesting than Rogue’s.

“Would you look at dat,” a silky feminine voice murmured from the shadows. Rogue was starting to wonder if every person in Remy’s life possessed the dramatic habit of emerging from the shadowed recesses of the city. 

Unlike when Jean-Luc had made them aware of his presence, Remy looked startled upon hearing the woman’s voice. Stiffly, he turned his head to watch as she walked towards them. 

Golden blond hair fell in soft waves around the woman’s face. Sharp blue eyes full of feminine mischief were locked firmly on Remy, completely ignoring Rogue beside him. She was an astoundingly beautiful woman. There was something in the way she moved that spoke of peak fighting skills. 

“Remy Etienne LeBeau, back in the flesh.” the woman purred as she reached them and ran a hand down Remy’s arm. 

Remy moved away almost instantly, an awkward look fluttering over his face, “Bella Donna,” he muttered, “My dad said ah might be seein’ you.”

“O’ course, darlin’, when ah heard you were back in town, ah had to come down and see you, non?”

“Non. You didn’.” he muttered, “Ah’m sorry, how rude o’ me. Dis is my teammate, Rogue, from de X-Men.”

He placed a gentle hand on Rogue’s upper back and pulled her in slightly closer to his body, almost as if using her as a shield against his ex-wife. Finally, for the first time since she had seemingly appeared from nowhere, Bella Donna directed her attention towards Rogue. The feeling of those crystalline eyes focused on her was far from pleasant. Rogue wasn’t a telepath, but she didn’t need to be to know that Bella Donna was scrutinizing her, though Rogue wasn’t sure what her final assessment was. 

“Rogue,” Bella Donna intoned slowly, “Ah t’ink ah heard ‘bout you before. De one who can’ touch anyone.”

Hiding her flinch, Rogue nodded easily, “That would be me. Nice to meet you.” 

“Ah can see that our dear Gambit here hasn’t changed his type a bit… Well at least at de core. Strong women who could beat his ass. Ah think you’ve got a bit o’ a kink, Remy.” Bella Donna teased casually. 

“Ha ha.” Remy responded dryly. 

Rogue watched as they continued to converse. She supposed that she didn’t have many exes to compare to, certainly no ex-spouses, but she wasn’t sure if she should be intimidated by their casual manner of interacting or not. There was some tension underlying their conversation, but from what she could observe it was entirely due to Remy. Had Rogue not been there, she’s sure they would have been talking as though they were simply old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while, which Rogue supposed they technically were. Remy’s eyes flicked back to her every once in a while, assessing her for signs of discomfort. He wouldn’t see any from her. She was good at putting on a mask. 

“We’ve gotta be goin’ now,” Remy finally said, “We can’ stay in New Orleans for long.” 

“What a shame,” Bella Donna sighed, “Well, if de two of you are ever back, you know where to find me. Who knows, we might be able to acquaint ourselves better, hmm, Rogue?”

Rogue wasn’t sure what to think of the look Bella Donna bestowed upon her. A sweeping look, from head to toe, with a slight tilt to her crimson lips. Without any further words of farewell, she sauntered back into the alleyway.

“Is there anyone else that’s gonna pop outta the shadows to greet you?” Rogue teased as they turned back to walk towards their hotel once more. 

“Ah don’ think so, but what can ah say, ma dame, ah’m a popular guy.” Remy replied with his characteristic smirk.

Rogue rolled her eyes in place of replying. She hadn’t expected this when she’d agreed to come to New Orleans, but she wasn’t going to complain. Even if the conversation with Bella Donna had been fraught with tension, and the meeting with Jean-Luc had clearly embarrassed him, Remy was so obviously happy to see his family again. And Rogue wanted that for him. She wanted him to be happy. She thought that was what love was about, allowing the person you love to be happy, even if you can’t reach out and do it yourself. 

“Bella Donna sure seemed… Well ah ain’t sure what ah’m meant to think about her, to be honest.” Rogue chuckled slightly, “She was pretty, though, can see why you married her.”

“Is dat de sound of jealousy ah hear in your voice, Chère?” Remy teased.

“Not everything is ‘bout you, Sugah.” Rogue teased in return. She pushed the man slightly as they walked, revelling in the slight contact, even if it was through layers of fabric, “Ah can say that your ex-wife was pretty without me bein’ jealous.”

Remy only smiled in reply. A genuine smile that reached his eyes and pulled at the corner of his lips just enough to give a glimpse of his teeth. A smile that set Rogue’s heart galloping slightly. It was an undeniable fact now. She loved him. She didn’t know when she had moved beyond attraction and into the uplifting tides of love. But she was glad for it. More than she could ever hope to express. 

Just when she was gathering the courage to make a move, to take Remy’s hand into her gloved one in a show of affection which would surely broadcast just how deeply she felt for the cajun man, a scream echoed through the streets. A scream of pain and anguish. 

It was second nature to run towards the sound with Gambit on her tail. The only thought on Rogue’s mind was ensuring that she got to the scene and ensured as many people’s safety as she could. 

The scene that they came across was, unfortunately, familiar to them. The Friends of Humanity stood above a small group of teenagers, their guns trained on them. It was fruitless to hope the police would turn up to take these thugs away, even in the most diverse cities the police force was still unlikely to help a mutant in need. 

“Get away from them!” Rogue yelled as she flew closer, “Gambit, get the kids to safety!”

Almost as if they’d been expecting her, all 6 of the terrorists turned towards her with stony expressions. They raised their guns, but they didn’t start firing, they simply trained them on her. Rogue would have liked nothing more than to careen forward and knock the men’s heads together, but she knew she couldn’t. They were in an open street that still housed a dozen civilians. Some were frozen in fear and shock, some were watching on eagerly, and others were just going about their business. Either way, she couldn’t risk civilian casualties. 

“Rogue of the X-Men, turn yourself in for judgment.” the leader of the group said. The way he spoke, with the confident self-assurance of a man who was used to getting what he wanted, annoyed Rogue more than she could possibly verbalise.

“Now why would ah do that?” Rogue scoffed, fists clenching at her side. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Gambit rushing people from the street, she could always count on him to have her back. It was best that she kept the terrorists’ attention on her so that they didn’t turn their guns on any of the innocents around them. 

“Because you are an abomination, and it is my job to purge you.” a mechanic voice said from behind her. 

She hadn’t heard anyone getting close to her. Whipping around, Rogue’s fist connected with the towering figure’s face, but the triumphant feeling of finally landing a hit in the fight didn’t last very long. A ray of light hit her in the back from the small groups of men. 

“Anna-Marie!” Gambit’s voice yelled, panic soaked into every syllable. Rogue didn’t get the chance to reply before the world turned black around her. 

Chapter Text

An overwhelming feeling of nausea overcame Rogue as she came to. It was a battle to keep the vomit down, one that she barely won. Her head pounded and her skin felt too tight. Her memories were foggy, the last thing she recalled was the sound of her name, her real name, as she blacked out.

It was so rare for Rogue to be knocked out. With Carol’s durability still protecting her body, she hardly ever got truly knocked down in a fight. And yet she’d been bested by a green ray of light in the middle of New Orleans. 

Jerkily, she tried to raise her hand to her head and soothe the pounding behind her eyes, but her arms didn’t move. Panic subsumed her body, flooding her down to the tips of her toes and fingers. The sharp feeling of an IV digging into the veins in her forearm filtered into her mind. It had been so long since she’d truly felt most forms of stabbing pain that she didn't initially recognise what the sensation was. With trepidation she turned her head and beheld the sight of both of her wrists strapped to a metal table, confined. And no matter how much she tugged at them, they wouldn’t move. 

“There’s no point in that, muttie.” that same mechanical voice from the street said from somewhere near her head. Rogue tilted her head back as far as she could to see the masked face of her kidnapper. “That IV is delivering a mutation-suppressing drug directly into your veins. Unfortunately, it's not permanent so I can’t cure you of your disease, but constant infusion should keep your ailment away whilst I have use of you.”

“Who’re you!” Rogue’s voice was hoarse, as though she’d been asleep for a very long time. Who was to say she hadn’t been? She had no idea how long she’d been knocked out or where they were. She was completely in the dark and she didn’t like it one bit. 

“You may call me X-Cutioner and I will refer to you as Subject 1981.”

“Ah have a name,” Rogue spat, “An’ ah definitely won’ be callin’ you that!”

“Mutants are not human and therefore don’t deserve the privilege of human names. You exist below dogs in the pecking order. All you and your kind are is an infestation that needs to be stomped out before you overtake the rightful rulers of this world.”

With every word that slipped past the man’s masked mouth, Rogue felt a deeper pit of despair yawn open in her stomach. She had encountered anti-mutant humans many times since her mutation had developed, but to blatantly hear the dehumanization of her and her people made a new kind of fear flower in her chest. There had always been an implicit understanding at the back of her mind that even if these people hated her, they still viewed her as human, but this man did not. What would he be willing to do to someone he deemed lesser than a dog?

Despite her pure terror, Rogue did her best to put on a brave face. She tilted her chin and painted as steady a sneer as possible across her lips.

“Rightful rulers of the world? Somebody’s got a superiority complex.” She was aware it wasn’t the best idea to snark at the man who had her tied to a table, totally defenceless, and yet the venomous words left her lips. Rogue could almost hear Remy snickering at her in her head. She already missed the man. 

In place of a verbal response, X-Cutioner back-handed her across the face causing her head to snap sharply to the right. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth, and yet she still grinned up at the man with bloody teeth. 

“Seems to me,” Rogue started slowly, “That you’re tryin’ to compensate for somethin’.”

With an angry growl, X-Cutioner stormed out of the room. Even if it was only brief, Rogue was glad for the respite. She didn’t know when she’d be able to escape and she didn’t know what he was planning for her, all she knew was that she refused to break.  

Rogue couldn’t say how long X-Cutioner left for. It could have been 10 minutes or it could have been 10 hours. From what little she could see, the room around her consisted solely of white padded walls. No windows. No clock. Just her, the bed she lay on, and her thoughts. 

Plan after implausible plan fluttered through her mind. With both her arms and legs confined to the bed and the mutation-suppression drug being pumped into her system, there was very little she could do to escape the predicament she’d found herself in.

She couldn't help but question why she had been chosen. Why had this psychotic madman elected to kidnap her, a well-known member of the X-Men, when there were thousands of mutants in the world that nobody would have noticed disappearing? That’s not to say Rogue wished the situation on anybody else, she was glad that if someone had to be kidnapped, it was her. Even if indirectly, she was glad to have saved someone the trauma of being forcefully taken. 

Behind her, the door opened once again, bringing with it the heavy sound of X-Cutioner’s footsteps. She didn’t want to be scared, but Rogue felt the fissions of fear tremble down her spine. She didn’t know what she was about to be subjected to. 

“Subject 1981,” X-Cutioner started as he came to stand above her. Behind him trailed another man clothed only in cargo trousers and an army green t-shirt. “It was captured in New Orleans, Louisiana. We had hoped to catch it at a later date, but when it intervened with another mission, we gladly took the opportunity to advance our plans.”

As X-Cutioner spoke, the other man nodded along whilst scribbling his words onto a clipboard. Not once did the man’s eyes flicker over to Rogue, he went through the process as though it was another day. Maybe it was to him. How many mutants had they kidnapped?

“Female. Assumed to be 20 to 23 years of age. Deformity has been reported as the ability to absorb power, life force and memories via physical touch. Its deformity is currently being suppressed via the use of suppression drugs.” X-Cutioner continued clinically “We took interest in Subject 1981 when it was working with known mutant terrorists ‘Mystique’ and ‘Destiny’. The doctor would like us to examine its deformity and see if replication on a long-term and large scale is possible.”

Foreboding to degrees which she’d never experienced started in Rogue’s chest and spread outwards. She knew that there were people out there who were intent on artificially recreating mutant power, some had been successful, but she never thought she’d be caught up in such repugnant experimentation. 

“Now wait one moment!” Rogue yelled. She frantically started tugging at her restraints with all her might, “You ain’t gettin’ nowhere near me!”

The two men turned disinterested eyes on her. Complete apathy pierced her from their gazes. They looked at her as though she was nothing more than a germ under their microscope. 

“When ah get outta here, ah’m gonna tear you limb from limb,” Rogue growled as her fear gave way to an all-consuming fountain of pure ire. “Ah’m gonna rip your dick off and shove it down your throat so far you’re gonna shit it out!” 

Seemingly tired of her threats, X-Cutioner gestured for his lackey to gag her. Yet, even around the mass of rubber in her mouth, Rogue continued to yell incomprehensible words. Insults that would make her Auntie cuff her around the back of the head and her mothers laugh gladly at their vulgarity. 

“Take it to the surgical theatre.”

If there was one thing that Rogue never thought she’d experience, even after joining the X-Men, it was being wheeled into an operating theatre whilst still wide awake with a gag stuffed into her mouth. These are not the sort of things that happen to most people, even mutant superheroes. And yet here she was. Gag in mouth, arms and legs strapped down to a table whilst a creepy-looking doctor smiled down at her. 

“What a specimen,” the doctor cooed. He ran a gloved hand down Rogue’s cheek. Though she tried to flinch away, revulsion burning bright in every cell of her body, she was stopped from moving too far by the restraints around her body. “What will we find out from you?”

Had the gag not been so firmly lodged in her mouth, Rogue choice words full of explicit promises for revenge may have stayed the doctor’s exploratory hand. As it was, muffled words and threatening glares did little to cow the sick glee painted across the man’s every feature. 

“We’ve never had an X-Man pass through our compound,” the doctor continued to simper, practically drooling as he turned from Rogue and started aligning some very intimidating tools on his trays. “I can’t wait to see what you have to offer.”

An animalistic sound tore itself from Rogue’s throat. Anger shielded her from the other emotions that she couldn’t allow herself to feel. If she let go of the rage turning the world around her crimson, then she’d have no choice but to give in to the terror that would surely freeze her. She needed to escape, and the only way to do that was to ignore her fear and use her rage as fuel. 

Practically giggling to himself, the doctor sauntered back to Rogue’s side with a frighteningly large scalpel in hand. The perverted joy that he took at even the thought of subjecting her to whatever twisted and torturous experiments he’d thought up was broadcasted throughout his entire body. It gleamed in his eyes and turned his cutting smile ominous. It vibrated in his arms, held still only via his years of experience in doing this exact thing to other defenceless mutants. It fluttered in his heart as his breathing sped up in clear anticipation of seeing the first beads of blood bloom from her skin under his hand. 

So focused on his fantasy of tearing into her body, the doctor wandered a bit too close. With his head bent down to salivate over the fresh meat presented to him, he was just a bit too close to the vengeful harbinger that was Rogue. 

With enough force to cause a startlingly loud crack to echo around the cavernous room, Rogue drove her head into that of the doctor above her. A broken nose, no matter how tough you were, was agony. His yell of pain, his cry of fear, felt like ammunition for Rogue’s already volcanic emotions. As he stumbled back, the doctor dropped the scalpel right into Rogue’s outstretched hand. She was thankful that the blade was sharp as it made quickly cutting through her restraints whilst the doctor writhed on the floor all the more easy. It was best, she thought at the very back of her mind, not to concentrate on the fact that the very same blade was mere seconds away from being embedded into her skin at the madman’s hand.

With revenge burning bright in her gaze, Rogue ripped the IV from her skin and the gag from her mouth and stalked towards the downed doctor. Seeing as she was no longer invulnerable, the headbutt had made its mark on her too. A thin rivulet of blood traced a path from her hairline to her eyebrow, threatening to drip into her left eye, but she ignored it, completely intent on the doctor cowering at the foot of the bed. 

“Get away from me!” he shrieked, “Muttie scum! Get back you beast!” 

With every word he spoke, her resolve toughened. Would the world truly miss him if she just… No, the world would not miss him. Some people deserved redemption, she would never deny that, but others were just too far gone. And a man who seemed to take almost orgasmic pleasure in the thought of cutting her body up was a man who didn’t deserve the opportunity to redeem himself. 

Between one moment and the next, Rogue leapt forward and embedded the scalpel deep into the man’s neck. A veritable fountain of blood spewed from the wound, dowsing Rogue and stealing the life from the gurgling man beneath her. Rogue couldn’t bring herself to feel especially sorry about her actions. She had killed people before, both accidentally and with focused intent. Many may say that it wasn’t heroic, but Rogue knew that sometimes you had to do things you didn’t particularly want to in order to make the world a better place. She’d never enjoyed it. Even now, as her possible torturer choked on his own blood, Rogue wasn’t enjoying the death she’d caused. But it was a necessary evil. 

She didn’t stick around to watch the life bleed from his eyes, she didn’t have time. Whilst there were no guards in the room, they were surely stationed outside of the door, and whilst tackling a few grunts wouldn’t ordinarily be an issue for her, Rogue knew that it was a fight she’d lose in her current state. If it had only been her mutation that was suppressed, she was sure she could have taken the men out in a surprise attack and then snuck out of the facility through some good old-fashioned subterfuge, but the poison they’d been pumping into her veins had been making her slightly drowsy. It was one thing to kill a defenceless doctor who was too busy pissing himself with fear to do anything, but it was another thing completely to fight through armed guards. 

Rogue’s eyes darted around the room, desperate to find some way to escape from this nightmarish situation. After a few seconds of looking, her eyes landed on a vent in the far corner of the room. It was probably just big enough for her to climb through. 

Without delay, Rogue rushed towards the vent and unscrewed it with forcefully steady hands. Every bit of training she’d received in her life kicked in. She gently pushed the vent cover aside and slipped into the duct beyond, pulling the cover back into place once she’d made her way in. 

It surely wouldn’t take them long to realise where she’d escaped to once they discovered the doctor’s body, but hopefully by that point she’d be far enough away to make her escape. She had to cling to that hopeful thought, otherwise, she knew she’d be subsumed by the knowledge that if the monsters in this facility got ahold of her again, they would not be lenient in their punishment.

Rogue was not oblivious to the sorts of things that went on in these sorts of places. Whilst her team had never found this particular circuit of sin, they had found plenty of others. Beyond the physical torture that mutants were inevitably subjected to, places such as this employed every tactic they could to break down those they viewed as beneath them. There was a burning urgency in her chest. She couldn’t let them get her. She couldn’t let the men who traversed the facility get near her whilst she was weakened. She wouldn’t let it happen. Without her mutation, anyone could touch her in whatever way they pleased.

As she crawled through the ducts, she desperately tried to keep her breathing steady. She left sticky, bloody handprints in her wake, but she didn’t care. She needed to escape, and she’d stop at nothing to make sure she got out. 

After only 10 minutes of scurrying around the ducts in search of a safe exit, deafening alarms echoed through the air. They had found the body. She didn’t have much time left, she’d have to risk it when she next came to a vent. She could tell that her mutation had not returned to her yet, but some of the drowsiness from before had abated. She may not be at full power, but maybe if she came across somebody she could deal with them and run. She had to hope that she could, otherwise her fear would consume her. 

When she next happened across a vent, Rogue peered out with cautious eyes. It appeared she had emerged relatively close to the front of the compound if the glass windows and less sterile atmosphere were any indication. It didn’t look like anyone was around, but she knew better than to think that she wasn't in imminent danger. 

Clenching her shaking hands to calm her shaky nerves, Rogue took a deep breath and formed a slap-dash plan. She’d push the vent out and make her way through the hall as fast as she could. Once she got to the window, she’d smash it and escape through it. There was no point in trying to stay unobtrusive when the alarm alerting every living being in the building to her disappearance was still blaring. They were going to be on high guard whether she smashed the window or not. 

A haphazard plan formed, Rogue took one more fortifying breath before pushing the vent out and making a dash towards the closest window. She was greeted by the sight of trees upon trees. The middle of a forest which was heaven knows where, but being out there was better than being subjected to the torture of mutant-hating humans. 

Frantically, Rogue looked around the hall around her for something to break the window with. The only thing she could see of use was the very vent grate she’d just disposed of. It was pretty heavy, but not so much that she wouldn’t be able to swing it hard enough to shatter the window. With no other choice, she snatched it up from the ground and immediately started her quest to break the window. 

Under the force of her first swing, cracks spider-webbed from the collision point in what Rogue could only call an artistic fashion. The second swing brought with it the all too satisfying sound of glass cracking, small fragments chipped away and fell to the floor. With each crack darting across the window, Rogue felt her hopes rise. Maybe she could actually do it. Maybe she could actually escape this nightmarish situation. 

She should have known better.

She didn’t get the chance to initiate her third swing. The swing that may have allowed her to escape. From around the corner came the sound of two pairs of boots thundering towards her and the sound of two men speaking urgently into radios. She had been found, but she wouldn’t go down without putting up a fight. 

The men rounded the corner and Rogue attacked. It was cathartic, she found, to swing the vent cover as hard as she could into the head of the closest guard to her. It was made even more so when, in the split second between starting her attack and moving onto the second guard, she recognised the man as the note-taker who had come in with X-Cutioner. He was out cold before he could even register that she was on them. She didn’t know if he was dead, whether the hit was fatal or not, head injuries were notorious for bleeding heavily. But, given the amount of blood spilling from his head and the blood that had flecked onto her face when she’d hit him, she was inclined to believe that if he wasn’t dead at the moment, he would be soon. 

She didn’t give his companion much time to register that they’d be attacked before attempting to swing the vent at him as well. However, her subsequent attack wasn’t as successful as her first. The man scarcely managed to dodge the attack, and in the moment that she was unbalanced, he managed to wrestle the vent from her hands and chuck it away. That wouldn’t stop her though. 

He may have felt smug about discarding her weapon, but Rogue imagined he felt less so when her fist landed on his jaw with enough force to rock him backwards. Even without her super-strength, Rogue was far from weak. She’d been trained by Mystique in combat before she’d absorbed Carol’s power, she knew how to throw an impactful punch. And she knew how to fight dirty.

Before the man could recover from the shock of the assault, she pushed forward, driving her knee into his stomach hard. His choked breath had scarcely left his lips before she yanked his head back by his hair and drove her fist directly into his nose with an almighty crack. With blood leaking from his nose and winded beyond belief, Rogue found the man looked almost endearingly pathetic. An uncontrollable smirk flickered on her lips for a second as she drove her foot forward into an unrepentant kick to his genitals. His almost girlish scream was cut off abruptly by Rogue slamming his head into the wall just hard enough to resolutely knock him out. 

The fight, if it could be called that, had lasted barely any time, and yet she knew well that every second counted when it came to such a delicate situation as this one. 

She rushed towards the window with the vent in hand once more, ready to break out, when pain like she’d never felt before exploded from her calf. An uncontrollable scream of anguish escaped from her lips. 

Light-headedness overcame her as she stumbled into the wall beside the window and dared to take a shaky look down at her leg. She’d been shot. The back of her calf was a gory scene of blood, but there was no exit wound. She had a bullet in her. 

Blurry eyes looked in the direction from where the shot had come from. A man stood, his gun still raised, speaking quickly into the radio at his shoulder. She’d been so close. One more swing of the metal in her hand and she would have been through the window. 

Even if she miraculously managed to incapacitate the man in front of her, even if she was able to finally break through the window, she knew that there was no way that she’d ever be able to outrun the guards who would pursue her as she escaped into the forest. 

Hysterically, she clung to the hope that something, anything, would come and save her from this situation, but Rogue wasn’t in the habit of believing in miracles. 

Despite the tears threatening to spill from her eyes, despite the pain throbbing in her calf, despite all of this, Rogue held her head high as the man advanced on her. She didn’t let her lip tremble. She maintained her fiercest glare and subjected the man to every shred of disgust that she could muster in her gaze. Even if she was on the floor bleeding out, she wouldn’t allow any man to see her weak. Her mothers didn’t raise a daughter who rolled over to a man who didn’t deserve it. 

The smug smirk on the man’s face as he lowered his gun and stepped close to her almost made her sick. How dare he? How dare he look down at her, smug and unrepentant, when he and his ilk had needed to rob her of her mutation and dope her up on drugs just to contain her? Whilst weakened, she’d killed two of his mutant-hating buddies and knocked out another, what right did he have to look down at her as though he had broken her spirit completely?

“Ain’t so strong now, are you, muttie?” he gloated. 

Snarling, Rogue didn’t grace the man with a reply. To speak to him would be a profound waste of breath. He didn’t seem to like her silence. His grin flattened into a snarl of his own as he tried to take hold of her hair. It was a bad idea to let his hand get close to her face. 

With a last burst of strength, pulled forth from un-before-seen reserves, Rogue launched up and clamped her teeth tightly onto the man’s hand. The putrid taste of hateful blood coated her tongue, but she refused to let go. They saw her as an animal, and so she would show them what a cornered animal would do. Biting, scratching and howling until she was free or else dead. 

“Fucking bitch!” The man roared when he finally managed to rip his hand from between her teeth. He looked back at her incredulously, as if the thought of someone biting him so viciously had never crossed his mind. In reply, Rogue simply offered him a grin that broadcasted her blood-soaked teeth. 

The backhand to the face was not a shock, but that didn’t detract from the pain that blossomed across her cheek and jaw at the feeling of fleshing on flesh. He reared his hand back to slap her again, Rogue didn’t allow herself to flinch at the threat of another hit. She’d never offer these men her weakness.

The hit never landed, though. From behind the man, a shape emerged. It wasn’t until a familiar bo staff was pressed on her attacker’s neck from behind that Rogue recognised what was happening. Her miracle had arrived. 

“Ah wouldn’ do dat if ah was you, homme.” Gambit's voice was low with acrimony. It sent an unfamiliar feeling through Rogue to hear such ire on her behalf. 

Gambit didn’t give the man the chance to respond before brutally knocking him out, though the look on his face said that he’d be more than willing to kill the man. 

As soon as his gaze was on Rogue, Remy’s face softened. Gone was the incandescent rage and with it the intimidating figure of the mutant outlaw, Gambit. In its place pure worry and relief mixed in his features. 

“Anna-Marie,” he breathed with a sigh, “Chère. Mon coeur.”

“Ah’m fine, Remy.” Rogue said weakly. Finally, she allowed everything to catch up to her. She allowed the pain to wash over her and for the tears to leak from her eyes. “Ah’m… Please, jus’ get me outta here.”

“O’course, mon coeur.” Remy whispered. For a moment, he hesitated with his hands hovering over her bare arms. 

“Mah mutation ain’t workin’ at the moment. You can touch me.” Rogue hummed as her consciousness faded. 

The last thing she felt before unconsciousness carted her away was, finally, the feeling of Remy’s warm hand touching her body. His skin on hers. That, and a pleasant tickling sensation on the inside of her forearm. 

Chapter Text

Rogue wasn’t a frequent visitor to the X-Men infirmary. There were few people that they ordinarily came across that could do enough damage to land her in a hospital bed. Of the very few times that she’d woken up in this situation, this was perhaps the worst.

Her body felt heavy, her calf was pulsing in pain, and the feeling of the IV in her skin made her want to tear her entire arm off.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, my dear Rogue.” Hank’s voice rumbled from a few feet away. 

With fluttering eyes, Rogue turned her stiff neck to look at the bestial blue face of her friend and teammate. Hank offered her a gentle smile. She could see the residual concern in his eyes, sparkling like hidden gems.

“What’s up, doc?” Rogue croaked.

Hank chuckled as he walked over and handed her a tall glass of water with instructions to drink it slowly. 

“Glad to see you’ve still retained your sense of humour. You gave us quite the scare there.” Hank hummed. Rogue opened her mouth to speak, but Hank shook his head and placed a large hand on her shoulder, “Don’t speak just yet, my dear. Those drugs are still working their way out of your system, so you’ll experience some lethargy for the next few hours. I anticipate your mutation will be active once again within the next 60 minutes.”

“Now, shall I fill you in on the details of this entire debacle? You were missing for approximately 12 hours, taken from New Orleans by a well-known player, Carl Denti, better known by his chosen nome de guerre, X-Cutioner. He and his accomplices appear to have been kidnapping mutants from right underneath our noses for the past 4 years. We have now dismantled the circuit they were running. Turning our attention to you, my dear, I should say that you are in an impeccable state given where we found you. The bullet wound should heal relatively quickly and the drugs should be flushed out soon. Aside from some minor bruising, nothing else appears to be out of place.”

Here, Hank paused for a second. He seemed to be contemplating something, though Rogue couldn’t possibly imagine what. Under her bushy brows, Rogue watched his eyes dart to her forearm.

“Aside from, of course, that development,” he added with a chuckle. 

With furrowed brows, Rogue lifted her forearm to her eyeline and promptly lost any air that had inhabited her lungs. 

Remy Ettiene LeBeau

There, an all too familiar name in an all too familiar hand was inked into her freckled skin. For a brief moment, she thought she was hallucinating. There was no way that she’d find her soulmate and just hadn’t known it. She’d always been drawn to Remy, but she’d been convinced that she didn’t have a soulmate, after all, who would want her? Surely it would be cruel for the universe to hand somebody a soulmate that they couldn’t touch. And yet here she was, a soulmark branding her forearm. 

“What…” Rogue muttered.

“It would appear that you and Gambit have much to talk about.” Rogue wanted to punch Hank, truly. She was grateful that he was clearly happy for her, but the smugness that his voice gained when he was proven right about something was almost too much to bear. 

“Yeah, it would.” Rogue laughed weakly, “Where… Do you know where he is? Ah don’ remember much about gettin’ outta that place.”

Here, Hank’s face fell slightly and Rogue’s stomach dropped. 

“He ain’t about is he?” Rogue muttered, any joy that had blossomed in her chest quickly fleeing from her body, “He don’ want me, do he?”

“What!” Hank exclaimed, genuine shock flickering over his furry features, “No, no, my dear. He would like nothing more than to be at your bedside, but unfortunately, he was called away by the Professor. He fought to remain by your side, but… Well, you know that Charles can be rather insistent when he wants to.”

Rogue nodded silently. Was it merely an excuse? Hank had no reason to lie about Remy being sent away, she knew that, but it still didn’t sit well in her chest that her soulmate wasn’t by her side. It wouldn’t be long until the drugs were flushed from her system and her mutation would become active again. She craved the feeling of Remy’s skin on hers again, the memory of it was so fleeting. She just wanted to experience it at least one more time.

Surely now, now that he knew he was stuck with a soulmate that he couldn’t touch, Remy would give up on her. She knew that he cared for her, but did he actually want her? Or had he simply been pursuing the thrill of the chase? He knew he could never have her, so he chased her just to be contrary. But now… Rogue knew that Remy wasn’t exactly the settling-down type. He was a bit of a womanizer, she wasn’t oblivious to that, but could she really hold him back? He was a tactile person. He threw his arms around their friends, he kissed the hands of ladies he’d just met, and one time he’d smacked a kiss on Logan’s cheek (and got a punch to the stomach in exchange). Could he truly be happy with a soulmate who couldn’t touch him?

Doubts and fears tumbled in Rogue’s mind and the only person who could satiate them had been sent off. Despite Hank’s comforting presence not far from her bed, Rogue couldn’t help but feel extremely lonely.

“Hank,” Rogue croaked, emotion clogging her throat, “Have you… Did you do that thing ah asked you to do?”

For a moment, Hank looked shocked before he managed to school his features into that vague disapproving expression that made Rogue feel like she was about to be scolded by her father. 

“I thought you had given up on that, Rogue,” Hank sighed, “It’s truly not for the best.”

“Ah know.” Rogue muttered, “Ah know it ain’t. But ah need it more than ever now, Hank.”

Rogue could see it, the pity that flickered in her teammate's eyes. She hated seeing it. On some level, they understood each other on this matter. Whilst Rogue’s mutation didn’t alter her appearance, it robbed her of one of the most vital parts of the human experience. And Hank’s mutation robbed him of initiating the human experience with ordinary humans. She knew that Hank understood why she was asking for this, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

Hank sighed heavily, “I did make them. I condescend the mutation inhibition technology into a bracelet, but I really can’t condone you wearing it, Rogue. I know that you want this more than ever now, but surely we can find another way that won’t put so much strain on your body?”

Rogue shook her head and looked directly into Hank’s eyes, “Ah know ah love Remy. Ah can’ say he loves me, but ah know he cares for me. Maybe this soulmark means he’ll care for me no matter what, but ah ain’t takin’ that chance. Even without that factor, ah’m tired, Hank. Ah jus’ wanna be able to touch someone, any way ah can, once a day at least. Jus’ once. If ah have to hurt myself to do it, then I suppose that ah’ll jus’ have to put up with it.”

Hank nodded silently, “I understand, Rogue. Know that I am far from happy, but I understand. Once the drugs are flushed from your body and you leave the infirmary, I will show you the inhibitors. For now, I am going to alert our dear friends of your consciousness, I’m sure they’re eager to visit you.”

With that, Hank offered her a strained smile and walked from the room. She knew that he wasn’t happy with her decision. Nobody would be happy with it, but she was just so tired of being deprived of touch. Even if it hurt her, she was going to overcome this barrier from her mutation. 

“Rogue!” Jubilee squealed as she raced into the infirmary. Muscle memory kicked in before the girl could scoop her up into a tight hug, but Rogue could see that she was practically bursting to throw her arms around her. 

“Sister,” Kurt entered the room much more calmly, though the relief on his face showed just how nervous he had been for her, “I am glad to see you awake again.”

Kitty had come in behind Kurt, a box of Rogue’s favourite chocolates in hand. “You gave us a real scare, Rogue.”

“Sorry, I’ll try not to get kidnapped next time.” Rogue joked. 

They settled in around her, all eager to ensure that she was truly okay after such a frightening ordeal. 

“Hey, Hank,” Jubilee said, “How long would you say until Rogue’s mutation kicks back in?”

“I’d estimate that the drug should be fully flushed from her body in approximately an hour.” Their resident scientists responded calmly.

Jubilee whipped back around and offered Rogue a huge grin, “Whaddya say, Rogue? I think it's the perfect time for a hug!”

Rogue couldn’t help the flare of warmth that blossomed in her chest at the sight of the younger girl’s enthusiasm. Even if Remy wasn’t around, at least she had her friends to distract her from the haunting memories of her abduction. 

“Well, ah suppose you ain’t gonna get the chance again any time soon, are you?” Rogue said with a put-upon sigh, though the gentle smile on her face gave away her true feelings on the matter. 

With her permission granted, Jubilee and Kitty threw themselves onto the bed, wrapping her in their warmth. She hadn’t felt this in a long time. The fear of hurting her friends was a distant memory. With their skin on hers, she felt safe. She felt secure in the knowledge that her friends loved her as much as she loved them. Though they operated like a dysfunctional family, Rogue wouldn’t trade the X-Men for anyone else. 

Once the girls had their fill, Kurt took their place, burying his head into her curls and squeezing her close.

“I can not express how worried I was, Rogue,” he whispered into her hair, “It is good to see you safe.”

“Ah’m glad too, Kurt,” Rogue whispered back, returning the squeezing hug, “Ah don’ know what ah woulda done if they caught me again.”

Her brother didn’t respond verbally, he simply nuzzled his face deeper into her hair and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Who knew if she’d ever be able to experience this tactile affection again? She savoured every second of contact she was gifted.

After several more rounds of hugs, including a particularly warm and all-encompassing one from Hank, Rogue could feel her mutation emerging from its forced slumber. Conflicting emotions bubbled in her stomach. Simultaneously, she wanted her mutation back and wanted it to remain dormant at the same time. She wanted the freedom to touch her family casually, to pull them into hugs and let them run their fingers through her hair. But she also wanted the power to defend them and others like them. She wanted the ability to fight for the mutant cause, but she also wanted the ability to finally kiss her soulmate now that she knew that the man she loved had been put on the Earth for her (and her for him).

“My mutation is comin’ back now.” Rogue sighed. 

Everybody offered her warm smiles, their eyes reflecting their understanding of the complicated battle raging on in her mind. 

“Even if we can’t touch you,” Kitty said with a smile dimpling her cheeks, “We’ll find other ways to show we care. We’ve been doing it for the last few years just fine, right?”

“Right.” Rogue smiled in return. Every baked good, every film night, every pep talk and every shared laugh spoke of just how much her friends (her family) cared for her, and she’d never forget that. 

As if sensing that she’d rather be alone, everybody offered her kind smile and left the room. Before he left, Hank stopped at her bedside, “I don’t condone it, Rogue, but the mutation inhibitor is ready for when you feel you need it. But know that nobody, not even Remy, would begrudge you should you decide to forgo its use.”

“Thank you, Hank,” Rogue whispered. She debated for a second, but she decided to take a risk and take Hank’s paw in her hand. She didn’t hold on for long, just long enough to squeeze it gently in gratitude, before quickly ending the contact out of fear. 

Soon, she was left alone in the infirmary. Just her, the various machines around her, and her mutation slowly activating once again.

She knew when her mutation emerged from the recesses of its hibernation. She hadn’t been conscious of it before, having lived years with her active mutation, but there was this gentle humming beneath her skin. It felt like a gentle vibration that would send someone to sleep. Soothing. She almost laughed at the thought. Soothing. What an oxymoronic sentiment. Soothing, and yet nothing was soothing about never being able to touch anyone out of fear that she’d accidentally kill them or discover something that she wasn’t supposed to know. 

Soothing.

She could rob those she loved of their life, and yet… In the back of her mind, there was something that was practically screaming at her to look at her mutation through a different lens. It sounded awfully like an odd blend of Mystique and Magento’s voices. She could hurt, but she could also aid. A single touch didn’t kill, it was about control and trust in herself. The main problem, Rogue thought, was that she didn’t trust herself. 

She didn't have much of a chance to reflect on the contradictions of her mutation before the door to the infirmary was, once again, thrown open and the man of the hour stumbled in. 

Remy didn’t look like he’d just returned from a mission, the only indication that assured Rogue that Hank had been telling the truth was the fact that he was in his tactical clothes. Ebony eyes immediately settled on her and a smile wider than the Grand Canyon split his face. Rogue had never known her heart to dance such a fitful beat in her chest, and yet at the sight of Remy, her soulmate, it was like her heart took up an Irish jig. 

“Mon coeur,” Remy breathed, he stumbled to her bedside and instinctively reached for her hand. Rogue wished she could touch him, wished she could pull his hand into her own, but she had no choice but to jerk away lest she hurt him.

“My mutation is already back, Sugah,” Rogue whispered, “Ah can’ touch you.”

Having Remy in front of her now was tortuous. She had been on the verge of passing out when they had touched, she didn’t have a true recollection of what it felt like to have his skin pressed to hers.

For a second, perhaps even a microsecond, Remy’s face fell. His smile dimmed and his eyes lost a bit of their sparkle. And even though it was for such a minuscule amount of time, Rogue noticed. She always noticed these things. 

“Ah’m sorry you ended up with a soulmate like me, Sugah.” Her voice gained a hoarse quality as she furiously fought back her tears. She so rarely cried, she always relieved her grief through her fists instead, but she couldn’t help shedding a tear as she looked at the handsome face of the man she loved. “You must…”

She didn’t get the chance to finish before Remy had taken her hand in his. Her heart stopped for a second before she noticed that he had pulled a pair of leather gloves on, clearly, he had anticipated that he wouldn’t arrive in time to catch her before her mutation re-emerged. 

“Ah’m gonna stop you right dere, Chère.” Remy stated firmly, “Nothin’ an’ ah mean nothin’, could ever make me regret havin’ you as my soulmate. Ah t’ink ah’ve been clear, Chère, but ah love you. Ah love you, an’ ah t’ink de only reason you didn’ see dat was ‘cause you don’ t’ink you're deservin’ of it.”

“How can you love me, Remy?” Rogue sobbed, “Ah can’ touch you! Ah can’... Ah can’ do what ah’m supposed to as a soulmate. The only way ah can is by… Is by wearing an inhibitor. An’ ah need you to know, Remy, ah’d do jus’ ‘bout anythin’ for you. Hank has already made it, ah asked him to a long time ago. But it don’ seem fair, do it? Ah can’ only touch you when ah’m in pain. One of us is always gonna be hurtin’!”

Remy listened to her speak with a pained expression on his face. Less for his sake, Rogue was starting to realise, and more for her. She said she’d do anything for him, and she was starting to realise the same was true for him. She could see it in his eyes. He’d gladly let her touch him, skin to skin, even if it drove him into a coma. She wasn’t sure whether she hated or loved the devotion that he so clearly had for her. 

“Ah don’ like de sound of dat, Chère, ah ain’t gonna lie.” Remy whispered, his hand tightened around hers, bringing with it the faint sound of squeaking leather, “Ah know dat there’s gotta be another way ‘round dis. But, till we figure it out, ah’m gonna be right by your side. Whether we touchin’ or not, mon coeur, ah belong wholly to you. You an’ me against the world, oui?”

Rogue had never loved someone as much as she loved Remy LeBeau. She was sure of it. Whatever deity was out there, matching people up, had made the perfect choice for her because she was never letting the man in front of her go.

With tears still beading in her eyes, Rogue nodded, “Okay, Sugah. Ah love you too.”

Remy’s eyes shone with just as much love as Rogue’s. They were going to be sickeningly sweet throughout their honeymoon phase, Rogue could already tell. 

For just a moment, everything was perfect, but then a shadow passed over Remy’s face. It was reminiscent of the look he gained when they were in New Orleans and his father revealed that he was in the Thieves Guild. He had a secret. 

“Ah don’ wanna lie to you, Chère.” Remy started slowly, “An’ a lie of omission is still a lie.”

Rogue’s stomach dropped. 

“What is it?” Rogue asked with some trepidation. 

For a second, he floundered. His unoccupied hand clenched and unclenched and his jaw twitched in a way that indicated that he was worried about something. Rogue knew damn near every single one of his tells, and he was non-verbally telling her that he was feeling very guilty about the secret he was inevitably about to share.

“Ah… Ah can’ verbalise it, Chère. It’s hard for me to explain, ah feel so… Guilty. An’ ah should. Dere ain’t any doubt ‘bout dat. Ah’m gonna touch you. Ah’m gonna show you. An’ ah need you to know dat you can be as mad as you want, ah’ll understand, but ah want you to listen to me when ah explain myself afterwards, ok?”

She’d never seen him so nervous. Gone was the confident, suave, Gambit who got women’s numbers with a single wink. Gone was the man who flirted with her from the moment he laid eyes on her. In front of her was a man stricken by worry and guilt. 

“Ah understand.” Rogue whispered. 

She looked into her soulmate’s eyes before she leaned in to touch him. It would only be for a second, just enough to glimpse at the memory that was at the forefront of his mind. She wouldn’t get his mutation. She wouldn’t retain any of his other memories. Just a glimpse. In the black and red eyes, the devil’s eyes, she saw contrition and she wanted to provide absolution, no matter how long that took.

With her hands hovering at the side of his head, Rogue pressed a short kiss to her soulmate’s forehead. Pure terror flashed through her. Her eyes flashed with bodies strewn across tunnel floors and blood dyeing dirty water crimson. The scent of smoke clogged her throat. Pain tore through every atom in her body, she was sure she was dying. A young face looked up at her from her arms, red with the blood of their dying mother, as she ran away as fast as she could from the carnage behind her.

Rogue jerked away with a gasp. She clenched her fists in her lap as she slowly tried to understand what she’d just witnessed. 

“You were part of the Morlock Massacre?”

Chapter Text

Remy didn’t reply for a moment. He couldn’t meet her eye, and Rogue knew that it was all but an admission of guilt.

“You were part of the Morlock Massacre.” she repeated, the questioning tone of her voice lost and instead replaced with the start of boiling ire. 

Remy gripped the side of the bed as he knelt, his head bowed in supplication. She could see tears beading in his eyes, that alone was enough to dim the incandescent rage roaring like a beast in her chest, but the way his voice wavered when he spoke cemented that she would hear him out, even if her heart fluttered with some unidentifiable emotion that reeked vaguely of betrayal every time she looked at him.

“Ah ain’t gonna say dat what ah did was right, Chère. But please, let me explain how ah got in dat situation.”

She observed him for a second, eyes skimming over his bent form. His eyes lacked their usual gleam. His hair was a nest of brown tresses, far from their usual ordered disarray. He looked at her as though she was the only one who could provide his salvation, and Rogue hated herself for wanting to give it to him. Despite what she’d seen, despite the anger weaving its way through her love, she still held unnerving levels of love for the man at her bedside. She still wanted him more than she’d ever wanted another person. 

“Speak.” It was not a request. It was an order. 

Remy took a deep breath and clenched his fists in his lap before looking directly into her emerald eyes. 

“Ah developed mah mutation like anyone else,” his accent strengthened as his emotions mounted, “Ah knew ah could charge t’ings, but when it first developed, ah could charge organic matter too, Chère, an’ it wasn’ easy to deal with. After… After ah broke it off with Bella, ah travelled a bit, ah wanted to get away from everyt'ing, but as ah was travellin’, mah mutation was gettin’ stronger. Ah couldn’ touch nothin’ without it explodin’ in mah face. Ah was scared. So, ah went to find someone who could help me, an’ ah just happened to stumble on Sinister. He said he’d help, for a price, an’ ah was desperate, so ah said yes. He removed somethin’ from mah brain, clearly ah’m still walkin’ and talkin’ but he made mah mutation weaker. Ah was happy, ah thought everythin’ would be fine. Then… Then he told me to leader de Marauders down into de tunnels, ah didn’ question it cause ah was jus’ payin’ him back, but when we got dere an’ ah saw dem people, ah knew ah’d messed up. Dere were so many o’ dem, an’ ah tried to stop de Mauraders from hurtin’ dem, but ah was attacked by Sabertooth. Ah saved one o’ dem, a little girl, but ah couldn’ do nothin’ for de rest o’ dem. It was mah fault dat dey were killed, ah know dat. An’ ah’ve regretted it every day of mah life since.”

Remy continued to ramble on. But Rogue focused less on his words and more on the grief overtaking his features. She understood what it was like to be desperate to find some sort of way to work around a mutation. How could she condemn him for seeking a fix to an unwieldy mutation when she had asked Hank to modify a veritable torture device for her people just so that she could touch her soulmate occasionally? She’d be a hypocrite to chastise him for that. 

“Ah jus’ don’ understand why you’d trust Sinister, Sugah.” Rogue sighed. She tried to hold on to the anger in her voice, she didn’t want to let him off the hook so fast, but it was hard when there was a mounting empathy rising in her chest. 

Would it not be hypocritical of her to condemn him for his past actions? Just a few days previously she had assured him that whilst she’d been running around with Mystique and Destiny, she’d done some truly horrible things. She regretted her actions from a few years previously more than she could express, and it seemed the man in front of her was in a very similar boat.

“Ah was desperate, Rogue,” Remy sighed heavily and ran a hand through his already messy hair, “Ah was losin’ control, an’ fast. Ah was never clued up on what was goin’ on with who was who in de mutant world. Ah kept to myself. Ah went on my adventures an’ ah did a bit o’ stealin’, but ah couldn’ ignore what was goin’ on with me no more. Ah turned to de first person who offered me help, an’ dat was Sinister.”

Remy was a very good liar. Rogue had known that since mere days after meeting the man when he’d lied about stealing Logan’s beer. She had watched him take the beer from the refrigerator, and yet even she had been partially convinced that he hadn’t even glanced at it. Months later, he would go on to explain to the team that he had subliminal psionic abilities wherein he could exert subtle influence over most people through his voice. Shortly after, the ability had stopped working on their team members due to being conscious of the ability. All of this to say, Remy was a good liar. But Rogue knew he wasn’t lying about any of this.

“Ah can tell you didn’ wanna be a part o’ this massacre, Sugah,” Rogue said slowly. She thought carefully about every word before it passed her lips, careful so as not to say the wrong thing and drive her soulmate away. “An’ ah believe that you regret it, but… You can’ keep this a secret no more.”

Remy opened his mouth, clearly to rebuttal her statement, but Rogue stopped him with a raised hand and a headshake. “No, Remy, listen to me. Damn near every single person in this mansion has made some sort of massive mistake in the past. Ah was a terrorist. Jean nearly ended the world ‘cause of the Phoenix Force. The Professor has sacrificed more people than he’s willin’ to admit just to get to where we are today. An’ let’s not even get into all the fucked up things Logan has done. None of us are perfect. Some of us have hurt innocent people, some of us have killed innocent people. The difference between what you did an’ what some of the rest of us did is that you were tricked. Ah’ve been tricked and Logan’s been tricked, but we both still done stuff with intent. Ah’d be a hypocrite, they’d be hypocrites, if we didn’ allow you to redeem yourself. If we can occasionally work with Magneto, what makes you think they can’t forgive you?”

Upon finishing her speech, Rogue took Remy’s still-gloved hand into hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Ah’m gonna stand right by your side and support you through this, Remy.”

A gentle smile worked its way across his lips. She truly loved this man, and maybe one day that would be a flaw, but sitting together at that moment, she couldn’t imagine any future in which her love for him impeded her. 

Almost hesitantly, Rogue raised Remy’s hand to his mouth. Confused eyes looked back at her from over the top of his hand as she drew soft patterns into the leather covering the back of his hand. Not wanting to draw out the need burning within her for any longer, Rogue leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the space where Remy’s lips would have been had there not been a self-imposed barrier in her way. Remy’s eyes briefly widened in understanding before softening.

“One day soon,” Rogue promised as she pulled away, “Ah’m gonna kiss you for real.”

“Ah can’ wait, mon coeur.”

They left the infirmary shortly after their reunion, Remy said that he’d rather just rip off the bandaid and tell the team about his part in the Morlock Massacre as soon as possible. Rogue cautioned him, expressing her belief that it would be best for them to wait a little bit so that he was more composed, but he was insistent. There was very little Rogue felt she could do when faced with his look of determination. Her love for the man would someday come back to bite her, but she knew she wasn’t alone in that sentiment. 

As they were leaving, Rogue felt her gaze linger on her innocent-looking bracelet confined to a locked glass case. She assumed that Hank would give the power inhibitor to her after she’d healed a bit more from her recent excursion. Even if he was acquiescing to her request, he wouldn’t allow her to use it whilst she was still injured. However, with her advanced healing abilities, it wouldn't be long until she was healed enough to don the hardware. Her leg was already well on its way to recovery, the sharp ache from before had been replaced with a dull throb at some point. 

“Come on,  Chère,” Remy hummed, taking her bare hand in his leather-clad one, “Ah gotta feelin’ dat you’re gonna be talkin’ down a lot o’ angry teammates soon enough.”

Rogue ripped her gaze from the glass case and offered her newfound lover a gentle smile, “Ah’ll be right by your side, Sugah.” She squeezed Remy’s hand a bit tighter in reassurance. Whatever happened, she’d defend him, even if it meant she had to be a bit harsh with her teammates. They’d survived worse than a tiny tongue lashing, she was sure that everything would be fine. 

Pre-cognition was clearly not some sort of secondary hidden mutation that she owned, because everything was decidedly not fine. 

“Those were innocent people, Gambit!” Jean yelled, her cheeks were flushed with righteous fury and a few of the lighter objects around them vibrated with her emotions. “How could you?”

“Like ah said,” Remy was far from his usual confident self, but he wasn’t rolling over either, “Ah didn’ know dat was what Sinister wanted. If ah had known, ah wouldn’ ever have even gone to de man for help.”

“You were complicit in a massacre, Gambit,” Scott said, his voice cold with anger. Though he wasn’t shouting like his wife, he was clearly far more angry. “We can’t just overlook that. The X-Men stand for all mutants, even those abandoned by society. Especially those abandoned by society. How can you expect us to turn the other cheek when you partook in a massacre and then proceeded to keep it from us?”

“Ah ain’t askin’ you to.” Remy sighed heavily, “Ah know ah kept it a secret, but ah only did dat ‘cause ah know you’d react like dis!”

Remy stood in the centre of the lounge with everyone else forming a horseshoe around him. Rogue stood beside her brother, carefully watching the expressions of every person in the room. 

It was very clear that Jean and Scott were angry. Jean’s face had gained a slight red flush and Scott’s jaw was clenched tightly. Storm and Hank, if anything, looked extremely disappointed. In Rogue’s opinion, that was worse than anger. Having either of the senior members of the team direct their anger at you felt devastating. Kitty’s youthful face was twisted into an expression of deep sorrow, it was more the reminder of the massacre than the fact that Remy had been present that seemed to be upsetting her, and Rogue couldn’t blame her, it was a very dark day in mutant history. Jubilee seemed to be looking to Logan for guidance as to how to take the news, and Logan himself seemed more contemplative if anything, though the slight furrow of his brows showed his displeasure. Beside her, Kurt had his head bowed and hands clasped in prayer, seeking guidance from the divine. Such an array of reactions. Rogue watched as her soulmate faced down everyone’s admonition with a straight back and sorrowful eyes. She said she’d have his back, and that’s what she intended to do. 

“Nobody is denyin’ that the massacre was a tragedy, Scott,” Rogue said as she stepped away from Kurt’s side and instead placed a gloved hand on Remy’s shoulder, “An’ we ain’t sayin’ you gotta forgive him straight away, but you’re actin’ like he planned the whole thing and killed every Morlock in those tunnels himself.”

“If he hadn’t led the Marauders down there, those people wouldn’t be dead now.” Jean rebutted sharply. 

Rogue felt Remy stiffen under her hand this was obviously a thought that had occurred in his guilt-addled brain on more than one occasion. 

“Sinister is manipulative and connivin’, you don’ think that if Remy wasn’ there he wouldn’t have found someone else? Someone who would have eagerly joined in? Remy tried to stop them and he did what he could to save at least one person. Ah ain’t sayin' it absolves him, but you can’ pretend that he went along with this with full knowledge of what would happen!” Rogue's voice gained a sharp edge. She was tired. She was still healing from her wounds and the strong emotions of the day were starting to catch up to her. 

“He was still complicit.” Scott insisted stonily. 

“Give it a break, Scott!” Rogue scoffed, she could feel Remy shifting beside her, clearly intent on calming her mounting temper. “Your actin’ like most people in this room haven’ made mistakes that have cost people their lives!”

“I think there’s a difference between a mistake on a mission and this, Darlin’.” Logan muttered. His tone was an attempt at reassuring, but he had never been a particularly reassuring man, even to those in his life he deeply cared for. 

“Ah don’ think so. We’ve all moved on from our pasts,” Rogue asserted firmly, “Ah ain’t sayin’ we forgot about them, but we learned and moved on. You all know damn well ah ain’t the terrorist ah was when ah first came here, Logan ain’t a government weapon and Jean ain’t bein’ controlled by the Phoenix Force. We’ve all changed. We ain’t sayin’ you gotta forgive him straight away, ah haven’ and he hasn’, but don’ sit there on your high horses and pretend like you’re all without your sins!”

She grabbed Remy’s arm tighter and pulled him towards the exit, “Come on, Sugah, we gonna let them think for a while.”

Remy didn’t put up any fight as she pulled him from the room, she could feel his gaze piercing into the back of her head, but she didn’t let up until they had reached her bedroom. Without stopping, she pulled him through the doorway and guided him towards the set of armchairs that looked out onto the garden. 

“Hypocrites.” She muttered as she flopped back into one of the armchairs and gazed out of the window with a fire burning in her gaze. 

“You’re gonna have to bring dat energy into de bedroom, Chère,” Remy hummed teasingly, “Got me all hot an’ bothered over here.”

Rogue chuckled weakly, gazing over at her lover with fond eyes. “Ah’m sorry ‘bout all that. Ah’ll apologise for losing my cool with them later. Just seemed to me like they wouldn’ let up.”

“No need to apologise, mon coeur. Ah coulda handled dem by myself, but ah’m glad you were there to back me up." The love that shone from Remy’s eyes was overwhelming, Rogue couldn’t help but duck her head and chuckle nervously. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes, simply absorbing each other’s presence. Rogue’s hand twitched to take Remy’s into hers but she withheld herself at the last second. Despite the casual touches that had slowly developed throughout their friendship, albeit through various layers of fabric, it felt different to touch him now. Without the haze of annoyance she’d felt in the lounge, Rogue felt much more self-conscious about bridging the gap between them.

As if sensing her internal dilemma, Remy silently took her hand in his. No words needed to be exchanged. It may not have been a lot to most people, but simply holding hands through layers of gloves warmed Rogue more than she ever thought possible. Whilst she’d like nothing more than to be skin-to-skin with Remy, just the knowledge that it was her soulmate holding her hand eased some of the perpetual aching in her chest. Maybe that could make this work.

“Ah’ll bet you’re tired, mon coeur.” Remy finally said, breaking the tranquil silence between them.

A wide yawn stretched across Rogue’s face, that was all the answer that Remy needed. 

“Why don’ you go an’ lie down? Ah’ll stay right here.” Remy reassured her. He brought her hand to his lips and placed a lingering kiss there. The action was so reminiscent of the first time they’d met. But, this time, they weren’t in the winding tunnels hidden beneath New Orleans with the vague smell of sewage. Instead, they were in Rogue’s room, the faint scent of cinnamon flavouring the air, and they knew they were soulmates. 

“Ok.” She whispered. Before she stood from her chair, she cupped Remy’s jaw in her hand, stroking her thumb over his bottom lip almost reverently. 

“Ah love you more than you can ever know, Anna-Marie.” Remy whispered almost inaudibly. But Rogue heard it, and the words buried themselves into her heart. Safe from the world. She knew it to be the truth. Only a man who loved her as much as Remy did would put up with the downfalls of loving a woman he couldn’t touch. 

“Ah love you too, Remy.” Rogue breathed in reply. 

The next morning was fraught with tension. Rogue was glad to see that her boyfriend was making breakfast for them seeing as he was one of the better cooks in the house, but the deliciousness of his beignets was greatly diminished by the silence that pervaded the room. Jean sat with her arms crossed, resolutely avoiding the piled pastries on the plate a few inches from her, Rogue could tell that she wanted to indulge, but Jean Grey was nothing if not stubborn. Kurt, whilst happy to eat the food, was not his usual self, he darted looks between Rogue, Remy and Jean with trepidation in his gaze. Jubilee was her normal self, bar her exuberant commentary. It was safe to say that a night of reflection hadn’t done much to diminish the anger and betrayals spurred on by Remy’s admission.

“Thanks, Sugah.” Rogue muttered, her voice loud in the deathly silence of the room, when Remy passed her a cup of coffee. She saw him twitch, as though he was intending to kiss her on the head, but he managed to pull himself away in time. 

She knew that Remy was a tactile lover. He was a tactile friend. Always slinging his arm around Logan’s shoulder and high-fiving Kurt over every small accomplishment. The beginning of a churning pit of despair roiled in her stomach, but Rogue pushed it away the best she could. They’d find a way around this barrier, she knew that they would. She just had to be patient, she’d waited this long, she could wait just a bit longer.

“No problem, mon coeur,” Remy’s voice reflected the same quiet tone of hers. The smile he gave her was enough to set light to her heart. She knew they were going to be insufferable to be around soon. 

“If you two are gonna make heart eyes at each other all the time,” Logan grumbled upon entering the room, “Do it somewhere else. I ain’t got the stomach to watch you being lovey-dovey with each other.”

“Don’ act jealous, mon ami,” Remy immediately fired back, “It don’ suit you.”

Logan huffed in response, but Rogue could see the slight flicker on his lips. He was happy for them. She knew he had lost his soulmate a long time ago, killed brutally shortly after WWII. She’d never known if Logan’d had multiple soulmates. It sometimes occurred that when one soulmate died long before the life of the other was destined to end, you gained another. Even if that was the case, Rouge didn’t think he was too eager to seek them out, not with all of the tragedy that he’d faced in his long life. 

Slowly, individual conversations popped up around the room. Storm entered and offered Remy a gentle smile before pulling Jean into what appeared to be a placating conversation. On the other side of the room, Jubilee’s ordinary exuberant speech reared its head whilst she spoke to Logan and Kurt. Whilst there was still a vein of discontent threaded through the collective mood of the room, Rogue felt herself relaxing ever so slightly. 

“Chère, der was somethin’ ah wanted to ask you,” Remy hummed. Rogue directed her full attention to him once more with an adoring smile, “O’course, you can say no to dis, ah ain’t tryna force you, but… Would ya be alrigh’ with me callin’ you Anna-Marie more often? Ah know you chose your name when you were by your mothers, but ah… Ah jus’ want somethin’ a bit more personal to call you by, an’-” 

Rogue cut Remy’s rambling off with a gloved hand over his mouth. The adoring smile she’d originally bequeathed him with had burgeoned into one full of loving amusement, “O’course, Remy. Ah ain’t got problems with my original name. My mama gave it to me, an’ ah know ah loved her before she was gone. But you don’ have to go callin’ me the full thing, just’ Anna is fine.”

Through the fabric of her gloves, she felt Remy’s lips lift into an unmistakable grin. His hand pulled hers from his mouth, cradling it for a second before he placed a kiss on the back of it. The kiss was chaste, as gentlemanly as could be, but the way his eyes burned into hers was anything but. Black on green, their gazes met and a frisson of electricity zapped down Rogue’s spine. She was starting to recognise that if Remy’s flirting before had been overwhelming, she was in for a ride.

“Now dat we sorted out dis will-dey-won't-dey we had goin’ on, ah think it's time ah took you out on a real date, mon coeur.” Remy hummed against the back of her hand, the heat in his eyes not receding one bit. 

“Yeah?” Rogue breathed out shakily. 

“Be ready at 3 pm.” he placed one more lingering kiss on the back of her hand, promises of fun and pleasure swimming in his devilish gaze, before sauntering away. Rogue was left, heart thundering and hands sweaty with nerves. 

Chapter Text

Mid-day found Rogue standing in Hank’s lab, hands clasped firmly in front of her. The tension in the room was to be expected, she supposed. There was no levity in handing over a tool used for the oppression of their people.  

“Are you sure about this, Rogue?” Hank asked for what felt like the 1000th time, “It will not be pleasant, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Ah know, Hank,” Rogue repeated once more, “But ah need this more than ever now. It ain’t fair to Remy. Who wants a soulmate that they can’ touch? Ah won’t be wearin’ it all the time. An hour or so of a headache ain’t too bad if it means ah can touch my soulmate.”

“And have you asked Gambit whether he wants you to make this sacrifice?” Hank asked. Rogue was growing weary of the threads of condescension that weaved their way through his concern.

“It ain’t only about him, Hank. Ah’d like to be able to touch people. Ah’m tired of being forced to distance myself. Until ah can find some other way to control my mutation, this is my only option!”

Hank didn’t look startled at her outburst, it was almost as though he expected it. Rogue supposed he did. He simply levelled her with a look of gentle concern, it was a look that Rogue had come to hate and love one and off again. At that moment, it reeked of pity. 

“Jus’ give me the damn bracelet Hank. Ah’ve got other stuff to do today, ah don’ wanna stand here and argue with you.” 

With levels of reluctance never before seen, Hank passed Rogue the innocuous box that had been taunting her since she had entered the room and caught a glimpse of it on his desk. He was reluctant to let go once it was in Rogue’s hands, but she eventually drew it from his fuzzy paws and held it to her chest.

“I understand why you’re doing this, Rouge. Nobody understands wanting to change your mutation more than I do, but please be cautious.” The slight edge of pleading in Hank’s voice tempered the mounting frustration in Rogue’s chest. She understood his concern, she was not oblivious to the negative side-effects she was willingly subjecting herself to, but she knew what she wanted and nobody else could change her mind.

“Ah’ll keep that in mind, Hank. Thank you.” She didn’t turn back to behold the look of constipated concern clear on her teammate's face despite his fur-covered features. She knew what she needed to do to be happy with Remy, and if the only way she could control her powers was by causing herself pain, then she’d do it with only a small inkling of hesitation. 

In Rogue’s humble opinion, a few hours was not enough time to prepare for a date with the man she’d been pining over for years, especially when that man was her soulmate. She almost wished that Remy had delayed the date until the next day, but she knew that if he’d done that she’d have just wallowed in her nerves. There was no way to win. 

“I think you should wear this dress,” Jubilee giggled from Rogue’s closet as she held out a formal dress that Rogue had worn once over a year ago when the X-men were invited to some sort of dignitary dinner. 

“Be serious, Jubes,” Kitty snorted with an eye roll. The young woman was bent over Rogue’s jewellery box, eyes wide in admiration. “How do you have so many nice and expensive accessories?”

“Umm…” Rogue chuckled awkwardly, “My mothers gave them to me? They’re probably stolen, but ah wouldn’t know where to return them to, so ah just kept them.” She tried to shrug off the confession, but she could see that she was getting some incredulous looks out of the corner of her eye.

“It pays to be the favourite, ja?” Kurt joked from her bed where he was sprawled.

“Hush, you.” Rogue laughed. She watched in the mirror as Kitty pulled out her favourite necklace. Silver with emeralds in laid. “That one ain’t from my mothers though, Remy gave me that.”

“So it's definitely stolen.” Jubilee snorted. She took the necklace from Kitty’s hand and held it up to the light, whistling in admiration. “But, seeing as it’s Remy who stole it, who's to say that they didn’t deserve it?”

“He stole what looks like a $2000 necklace and you still didn’t think he liked you?” Kitty laughed. 

“Ah don’ know,” Rogue huffed, “Ah thought he was bein’ friendly. Ah wasn’t completely oblivious, ah thought he might’a liked me, but… Ah didn’ wanna be wrong.”

“Oh, he likes you,” Jubilee giggled, “I definitely think you should wear this necklace, seeing as he’s the one that gave it to you. Plus it matches your eyes. I bet that’s why he stole it!”

“We don’ 100% know that he stole it,” Rogue tried to argue, “He could have bought it.”

“Yeah, with stolen money.” Kitty butted in, much to Kurt’s amusement, “Hey, I’m not knocking it. I wish someone would give me expensive jewellery that matches my eyes.”

“Alrigh’,” Rogue said with a roll of her eyes, “Are you goin’ to help me get ready for this date or not? You’re the ones that insisted.”

After that it was a flurry of movement. Dresses were held up against her by the two younger women before being discarded just as quickly. Kurt gave his suggestions from his place lounging across her bed. Rogue curled her hair and organised it into a fancy updo. It had been so long since she’d been on a date that her hands shook with nerves. The only thing keeping the nausea at bay was the knowledge that there was very little that she could do that would drive Remy away from her.

After nearly two hours of work (most of which was not spent getting ready), Rogue stood in front of her mirror admiring the figure she cut in the semi-formal dress they’d all eventually agreed upon. The only thing left to do was slip on the power-inhibiting bracelet.

“I understand why you want to…” Kitty muttered, “but…”

“Even if it’s just for our first date, ah’d like to be able to touch my boyfriend, Kitty,” Rogue muttered. With a deep breath, she slipped the bracelet on.

The change wasn’t immediate, it seemed that Hank had done all he could to make the inhibitor as comfortable as possible, but Rogue could feel her strength leaving her. There was a slight pain behind her eyes, but it was easy enough to ignore. 

Jumping slightly, she felt a hand in hers. Three-fingered and rough. “You look wonderful, Sister.” Kurt whispered, “Go and enjoy yourself.”

She pulled her eyes away from her reflection to smile brightly at Kurt. Despite the discomfort of the bracelet, she knew she was going to have a wonderful time that night.

Remy, as promised, was standing in the entrance hall when Rogue descended the stairs. He looked even more dashing than usual in his three-piece suit and fashionably tousled hair. Rogue felt a profound fluttering stir in her chest at the sight. Finally, after what felt like decades of pining, they were taking this step together. Her first actual date in roughly half a decade, and it was with her soulmate. 

“Hey, Sugah,” Rogue smiled wide at her partner as she reached the bottom of the stairs and took her place next to him. 

Rogue had never seen Remy look so besotted. He looked at her with stars gleaming in his eyes. Lips pulled into a loving smile so wide it nearly split his face. 

“You look breath-takin’, mon coeur,” he breathed out. He reached down to take her hand before suddenly hesitating. Rogue’s heart stopped for a moment, wondering what she could have possibly done wrong without realising. Her eyes flickered down to her bare hands and she let out a breath of relief. 

“Ah’m wearin’ a power inhibitor,” she reassured him as she brought her braceleted wrist to his eyeline, “Ah wanted to be able to… To touch you. It’s our first date, after all.”

She couldn’t push down the blush that heated her cheeks at the admission. There was nothing scandalous about wanting to feel his skin upon her own, but for someone like her, even the thought of skin contact was exhilarating. 

For a moment, it looked as though Remy wanted to comment on her use of the power inhibitor. She knew that he, like all of their friends, would be concerned about the pain it would cause her if she wore it for too long. But Remy, unlike their friends, seemed to have an intuitive understanding of her mind. Maybe it was their soulmate connection, the fact that they had been made for each other by some higher being, maybe it was just the fact that Remy could read her like a book. Whatever it was, Remy always understood her, and for that, she was infinitely grateful. 

Warm skin glided across the palm of her hand as Remy pulled it closer to his lips. The feeling of his lips brushing the back of her hand sparked such warmth in Rogue that she didn’t even attempt to disguise the besotted smile that spread across her visage. 

This was it. Finally, his skin on hers just for the sake of it. Not because he was rescuing her. Not because she was using her mutation to uncover one of his darkest secrets. No ulterior motive, just pure affection. Rogue couldn’t quantify just how much she needed this. 

From their left, a camera flashed. Rogue’s head whipped around to see Logan smirking at them from behind a camera. Kurt and Ororo stood on either side of him, both looking upon them with gentle smiles that spoke of their joy for the couple. 

“Just thought you’d want me to capture the happy moment, Moonbeam.” Logan hummed. 

Rogue gave an exaggerated sigh, though her faux annoyance was betrayed by the smile that just wouldn’t leave her lips, “You’re actin’ like a Dad watchin’ his kid bein’ taken to prom.” she teased. She threaded her arm through Remy’s and guided him closer to the front door where their friends had congregated. 

“Yeah, that reminds me,” Logan turned his attention to Remy and popped a solitary claw. He held it up threateningly close to Remy’s face, though the man didn’t flinch a bit. He smiled instead, his eyes full of mirth as though he knew what was coming next. “No funny business, LeBeau. I wanna hear that you were the perfect gentleman.”

Kurt and Ororo laughed whilst Rogue muttered under her breath about dramatics. 

“Mon ami, you should expect nothin’ less.” Remy chuckled, “Now we’ve got a reservation to be gettin’ to an’ ah’ve got a belle femme to be wooin’.”

They exited the house to calls of luck and cat calls. You’d think they were off on their honeymoon with the way their family were hooting and hollering from the doorway of the house, but Rogue didn’t care one bit. She found, behind the giddiness of finally going on a date with Remy and the lingering exhilaration from having him touch her, she was not upset that they were making such a big deal out of the entire thing. She had waited longer than most for this moment, and her family knew that. 

At the bottom of the steps leading up the mahogany door to the manor, Remy had parked one of the various cars in the X-Men’s possession. The roof had been pulled back and the red paint gleamed in the afternoon light. 

“Did you steal one of Scott’s cars again?” Rogue teased when they reached the car. She went to open the door, but was beaten to the punch by Remy pulling the door open for her. She chuckled lightly and stepped into the car and settled into her seat. 

“Non. Dis one is mine.” Remy replied, “An’ ah got it through completely legal means.” The wink that accompanied that utterance was less than reassuring, but Rogue couldn’t find it within herself to care. She was going on a date. There was very little that could spoil her mood now. 

The restaurant they pulled up to was nice. Far nicer than any place she’d been taken before. Remy opened her door and offered his hand like the true gentleman he promised Logan he’d be, a fact that made Rogue giggle slightly to herself. Never did Rogue think she’d be giggling, but with Remy guiding her to the front of the restaurant and opening the door for her, she couldn’t help herself. 

They were guided to the back of the restaurant where Remy pulled out the chair closest to the wall so that Rogue could look out onto the patrons of the restaurant, watching the comings and goings of various people. Whilst she loved Remy for the big signs of love he bestowed upon her, it was these small things that cemented just how much she cared for him. Remy knew that she hated sitting with her back to large groups of people, a side-effect of the vigilant nature she’d developed since her mutation had developed, and so whenever possible he ensured that she had a clear sightline of the people they were surrounded by. 

“This place is beautiful, Remy. How’d you get us a place here?” Rogue couldn’t help but ask as her eyes devoured the various displays of wealth baked into the restaurant’s decor. 

“Ah had a few favours ah checked in. Ah know it’s a bit different to what you usually prefer, but ah wanted to take you somewhere nice for our first date, Chère.” as he spoke, Remy reached across the table and took Rogue’s hand into his own. He placed a light, chaste kiss on her knuckles but refused to relinquish his hold after doing so. His eyes never once left hers.

“It’s perfect, Sugah, ah couldn’ ask for nothin’ better.” Rogue replied with love in her voice. 

Though the novelty of the situation had yet to fade, she still struggled to believe that she was actually on a date with Remy LeBeau, the butterflies swarming her entire body were starting to settle down just enough for her to focus her entire attention on the man in front of her. Her man. 

They spoke in gentle voices for a few minutes, reflecting on their days thus far. It was only after the waiter had taken their orders and their wine had been delivered to the table that Remy finally let go of her hand and leaned back in his chair a bit.

“Normally ah’d be talkin’ all smooth, lettin’ de femme across from me know ‘bout all my best attributes, but somethin’ tells me you wouldn’ believe me if ah tried, mon coeur.” Remy’s smile, near permanent since the moment he laid eyes on her, tilted mischievously as he spoke.

“You bet, Sugah.” Rogue teased in reply, “There ain’t much you can say ‘bout your best attributes that ah can’t combat with some of your best screw-ups.”

“You wound me, Chère,” Remy joked, his hand coming up to clutch his heart in faux pain, though his eyes still glimmered with mirth. “Ah’ll have you know dat some of my best screw-ups were done without an audience to see.”

“Then you’ll just have to tell me ‘bout them instead.” Rogue’s heart fluttered in her chest before she said the next thing. Flirting, seriously flirting knowing that she was allowed to want the man before her, was a scarcely touched skill of hers, but she was going to do her best anyway. “‘Cause ah already know ‘bout all of your best attributes. Ah bet’ya ah could name more than you ever could.”

As if caught off guard by her blatant flirtation, Remy’s hand twitched, but that was the only sign of how affected he was. It would take a lot more than that to crumble the flirtatious veneer that the man had cultivated for himself over the years. 

“Ah bet you could, mon coeur.” 

They laughed and joked their way through their starter course. They flirted almost obscenely throughout their main course. It wasn’t until their dessert arrived, brownies flecked with gold with a side of decadent ice cream, that the air between them mellowed into something more serious. 

“Ah… ah don’ wanna ruin de date, Anna,” Remy started slowly. The use of her birth name immediately caught Rogue’s attention. She didn’t hate the sound of it falling from his lips, in fact, she found that she adored the sound of his accent curling around her name, but there was something about his tone that told her not to interrupt with the observation. “But ah t’ink we need’ta talk about it.”

“What is it, Remy?” she asked gently, taking his hand in hers.

“You know dat ah will love you no matter what. You could return to your mothers an’ ah’d still love you, nothin’ you do could ever stop dat. What ah’m gettin’ at Chère, is dat your mutation ain’t gonna stop me from lovin’ you, it didn’ stop me from fallin’ for you in the first place, that ain’t gonna change now.”

As he spoke, Remy kept his eyes glued firmly to her face. His mesmerising gaze prohibited her from turning away to hide her face as she so desperately wished to do. He was speaking from the very depths of his heart and Rogue was compelled to listen.

“But… Ah don’ want you hurtin’ yourself. An ah know it ain’t just for me, Anna. Ah know dat power inhibitor is more for you than for me. Ah know how much you wanna be able to touch not just me but de rest of our family as well. Ah can see it in your eyes, sometimes, de way you get sad ‘cause you can’ hug Jubilee de way everybody else does. Or how your hand be twitchin’ every time Logan says somethin’ self-depricatin’, like you just wish you could reach out and shake some sense into him an’ then force a hug on him. Ah know dat all of dat comes from how scared you are.”

He paused, allowing her space to respond if she wanted. She wasn’t sure if there was anything she could say in response. What was there to say, that Remy was 100% accurate? She already knew that he knew her, inside and out, but it was different hearing him read her so well.

“Ah ain’t gonna say that you’re wrong, Sugah,” Rogue muttered, “But there ain’t exactly much ah can do but wear this power inhibitor, is there? My touch is like poison. Ah can’ hold the people ah love without sappin’ the life outta them like some damn leach. That’s a scary prospect, Remy.”

“An’ ah won’ ever deny dat, mon coeur. Ah know how scary not havin’ control of your mutation can feel. Dat’s why ah went an’ got myself mixed up with Sinister. De things ah was capable of doin’ scared me.” Remy took a deep breath before continuing, “It was only after ah’d damn near gotten a lobotomy dat it occurred to me dat de only reason my mutation was growin’ more powerful was because ah was scared. It was a cyclical relationship, you understand?”

Hesitantly, Rogue nodded. Slowly, she was starting to piece together what it seemed like Remy was saying. 

“Now, am ah sayin’ dat it’s the same for you? Ah don’ know. You know ah ain’t no expert on dis. What ah am sayin’, Anna, is dat ah doubt dere’s been a single moment since your mutation manifested that you haven’ been scared of yourself an’ what you can do. Maybe it's similar to what ah went through, maybe it ain’t. But you won’ know till you try. Ah’m here for you, no matter what happens, an’ if one o’ de things that you want to work through is fightin’ de fear you have towards your mutation, den ah’ll be there for you. Ah want whatever is best for you. Not for me, though ah won’ pretend that ah won’ benefit, an’ not for anyone else. Jus’ you.”

Throughout his impassioned speech, tears had started to bead in Rogue’s eyes. How had she gotten so lucky? Was it luck, or simply just a sign of deep and meaningful love? 

“Thank you, Remy,” she sniffled slightly, “Ah don’ know if you’re right. Maybe my fear has been holdin’ me back from controlling my mutation, maybe that’s just how ah am. But you’re right, we won’t know ‘till we try.”

Remy leaned across the table, over their melting ice cream, and pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. She had expected him to aim for her lips and she wouldn’t deny being disappointed at the placement of the kiss. 

“Don’ pout at me, Chère, ah got a plan for our first proper kiss. An’ it ain’t happenin’ here.” Remy winked at her cheekily. 

With an exaggerated huff, Rogue picked up her spoon and started digging into the delectable dessert on the table. Throughout finishing their meal and Remy paying a bill he refused to let her see, Rogue couldn’t help but be curious about what exactly Remy had planned for their first kiss. 

Back in the car, Rogue had no idea where they were going. Had it been a first date with anyone but Remy, Rogue would have long ago ripped off the power inhibitor bracelet and taken control of the car herself. As it was, however, Rogue trusted Remy implicitly. She had trusted him with her life before, and she’d do it a million times over.

“You gonna tell me where we’re headin’ to yet, Sugah.” Rogue teased. 

“It wouldn’ be a surprise if ah went blabbing my lips, would it Chère?” 

“No, but at least ah’d know you ain’t plannin’ to murder me.” 

“Ah could never, mon coeur. Least of all ‘cause if ah got back to the mansion without you ah think Logan would slice me to pieces. Then Kurt would spread out those pieces to all four corners of de globe.” 

“Damn right, they would.” 

It wasn’t long after that that they reached their apparent destination. Parked on the edge of a cliff, the forest sprawled below them and the stars above them, Rogue felt at peace. Any signs of residence were far off on the horizon. It was just her and Remy, alone together.

“Now ah ain’t no expert, but this looks like the sorta place that teenagers go to in the movies.” Rogue teased, turning to behold Remy’s profile, lit only by the moon and the stars.

“Ah reckon you guessed right, mon coeur.” Remy smirked as he turned to face her, “Ah’m a sap at heart, you know, couldn’ deny you de full first date experience.”

“We’re in our 20s, Remy.” Rogue laughed, though her amusement with the man’s idea didn’t stop her from inching closer until her face was only a few inches from her soulmates. 

“Who said there was an age limit on kissin’ under the stars?” Remy combated with a raised eyebrow, “If ah want to kiss my lady for de first time like dis, who's gonna stop me? Are you, mon coeur?”

With her eyes glued to his lips, Rogue barely managed to breathe out the word “Never” before his lips were against hers.

There were no fireworks, though Rogue had not expected there to be. There was only an exhilarating warmth made all the more profound by who it was that she was kissing. The smell of his skin and his cologne filled her head, making her crave more. The feeling of his hands on her waist as he pulled her into his lap sent a spark of heated love careening from her heart and into her brain. The push and pull of his lips against hers, the sensation of it, confirmed all that she already knew.

Their tongues stayed firmly in their own mouths, Rogue was planning to save that certain brand of kissing for later, but that did not detract from the heated passion they exchanged. It was not long until Rogue was controlling the kiss. They kissed and they kissed and they kissed.

Finally, Rogue pulled away. Lips kiss-swollen, she looked down into the heated gaze of her lover. 

“How fast do you think you can get us back to the house, Sugah?” She said somewhat breathlessly. 

“‘Bout 15 minutes.” 

“Then you best get to drivin’, Sugah, ‘cause ah ain’t a patient woman when ah know what ah want.” 

The hunger that ignited in Remy’s eyes could be described as nothing but sinful. Rogue may have nothing else to compare it to, but she could already tell she was going to have the first of some of the best nights of her life. 

Chapter Text

Waking up the next morning was far harder than Rogue would admit. Warmth surrounded her in a way that it hadn’t since her mother had held her to her chest as a small child, lulling her back to sleep after a nightmare. The feeling of wide expanses of skin pressed to her own was exhilarating, but the overwhelming joy that Rogue felt was diminished by the near-excruciating migraine pounding behind her eyes. The morning light, which she normally greeted eagerly, caused her nothing but pain.

She’d had the option the previous night, once they’d finally tired themselves out, to return to her bedroom and remove the inhibitor bracelet. She knew that it was the smart thing to do. Such technology was destined to hurt her if she used it for prolonged periods, but she just couldn’t bring herself to pull away from the man she loved. Remy had been concerned for her health, but he ultimately bowed to her decision. She didn’t regret not returning to her room, not when it gave her the opportunity to wake up in Remy’s arms, but she could already tell that this wasn’t going to be a frequent occurrence, not if she wanted to keep her sanity intact.

With a heavy sigh and a wince of pain, Rogue shifted out of Remy’s arms and started pulling on the essentials she needed to dart across the hallway to her room quickly. 

“You leavin’ me, Chère?” Remy’s sleep-rough voice emerged from the tangle of blankets at Rogue’s back. 

A smile that she couldn’t possibly hope to contain spread across Rogue’s face at the sight of her man lying out lazily in his bedsheets, eyes barely cracked open. 

“Gotta go, Sugah. This power inhibitor is startin’ to drive me crazy.” She swooped in and pressed a long kiss to his lips, the last they’d be able to have for a while, “But that don’ mean ah regret a single second of last night. You rest up, Sugah, ah’ll see you later.”

An inelegant snore was her only response, which evoked a light snort of amusement from the woman. 

The journey from Remy’s room to her own was thankfully devoid of any of her teammates. Though she was sure they had plenty of ideas about what had occurred the previous night, she wasn’t eager to run into any of them whilst she was only dressed in her underwear and one of Remy’s t-shirts that she had scavenged instead of laboriously pulling on her fancy dress. 

As soon as the door closed behind her, Rogue pulled off the inhibitor and placed it gently back into its case. As much as she’d enjoyed the previous night, and she had definitely enjoyed it, she wasn’t eager to wear the bracelet for such a long time again. 

Despite the migraine raging behind her eyes, Rogue couldn’t help the giddy feeling that bubbled in her stomach and swarmed her chest like butterflies. She hadn’t expected the date to be anything but perfect. She would have thought it perfect if Remy had just taken her to a simple cafe instead of the upscale restaurant he’d selected. The only stipulation for a perfect date was that Remy was there and that he was happy to be with her. Both conditions had been more than fulfilled the previous day. 

Their whispered conversations and shared jokes fluttered through Rogue’s mind, igniting her emotions anew. Every brush of his hand against hers whilst they ate and every crooked smile full of love replayed behind her closed eyes as she lay, starfishing, on her bed. With the feeling of soft blankets beneath her, her mind couldn’t help but wander to what had occurred at the end of the night. Biting her lip, Rogue felt her cheeks heat at the memory. Remy had been very patient, given she was new to the entire ordeal, but once she’d gotten confidence… It was fun. It was very fun, and she was glad that she’d got to experience it with Remy. 

Well aware that she couldn’t lie on her bed reminiscing about the previous night, Rogue rolled out of bed and shuffled towards her bathroom. Already, she could feel her headache receding thanks to her enhanced healing, but her energy was in the gutter. She needed to get clean and stuff her face full in the kitchen, though venturing to the kitchen came with its own problems named Jubilee and Kitty. They would want every detail of her date.

With a heavy sigh, Rogue stepped into her shower. She had a few minutes yet to figure out how she’d fend off the relentless questions of her younger teammates. 

“Rogue!” Jubilee squealed as soon as Rogue set foot in the kitchen.

It seemed as though most of the team had decided to have breakfast together, much to Rogue’s dismay. She cared deeply for her friends, but a mischievous glimmer sparkled in too many eyes around her. Even Jean was looking at her with a knowing look, it seemed that she had calmed down a bit after Remy’s reveal. Like she’d said, Rogue understood her anger, but she didn’t much enjoy the hypocrisy that had struck Jean and Scott. She was thankful that they were willing to stow their hostility.

“Rogue!” Jubilee repeated, “Remy won’t tell us anything about your date. He won’t even tell us where you went!”

“Some of us are gentlemen, mon ami,” Remy winked, “Ah don’ kiss an’ tell.”

Logan scoffed and shot a glare at both Rogue and Remy from where he was leaning on the counter, “Some of us have enhanced hearing, Bub, I don’t think you need to be telling anyone anything with how loud you were last night. Keep it down when you decide to fuck like bunnies in the future, I don’t need to know about how you like to take it, Gambit.”

Rogue felt heat rush to her cheeks. “Logan!” she gasped. Simultaneously, the smirk on Remy’s face only seemed to widen.

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong wit’ lettin’ your lady take what she want, non?”

“Remy!” Rogue admonished, voice accompanied by the loud laughter from around the room, “We don’ need to be tellin’ nobody ‘bout what we was gettin’ up to!” 

“O’course, mon coeur. It just be between me an’ you.” Remy took her gloved hand into his and, once again, kissed it reverently. How could she stay mad at him when he looked at her with such adoration? 

“Your sweet talkin’ ain’t always gonna work, Sugah.” she chuckled. 

“Ah’ll take my chances.”

“Alright, lovebirds, break it up.” Scott chuckled. “Seeing as we’re all here bar Hank, I think it would be efficient to do the announcements now.”

The mood of the room sobered almost instantly. Birds tweeted outside, the smell of bacon mixed with that of various fruit smoothies into a scent that Rogue would always associate with breakfast in the mansion, but despite all of these familiarities, her attention was focused purely on Scott. 

“First of all, I’m glad that you’re okay, Rogue. I didn’t get to say it the day you woke up, but I’m glad that you’re back in one piece.”

“Thanks, Scott.” 

“Second, I know that we’re all worried about the current legislation, and I assure you, Charles is working on talking to his government contacts. After the reconnaissance mission Remy and I went on, we should be able to get this legislation reversed. Hopefully, the students will be able to return soon. In the meantime, it is imperative that you maintain your training. I don’t want to see any slacking. Which brings me to my third point. We will have a danger room training session at 2 o’clock this afternoon. Be prepared to target your weak areas. And, finally,” Scott turned his attention to Remy, “You and I need to have a talk, Remy. What you revealed the other day was… Well, I’m sure you can understand that we need to talk about it. Meet me in the drawing room at 11.”

“O’course, mon ami,” Remy immediately conceded, “Ah didn’ t’ink ah could reveal such a thing an’ get away without a talk. Ah’m more than happy to oblige.”

“Thank you,” Scott released a deep breath, clearly he’d been expecting more resistance. Rogue knew that Remy wasn’t oblivious to how revealing his involvement in the Morlock Massacre would temporarily cause a few waves in the team, but like she’d told him before, they’d come back from worse. 

“That’s everything for now, I’ll see you all in the danger room at 2.” 

Slowly, people filtered from the room. Jubilee insisted that she’d get the details out of Rogue sooner or later as Kitty dragged her away to play video games. Logan cast Remy a stink eye that she struggled to take seriously as he left the room. 

“I am happy you have found happiness, Rogue,” Storm said softly as she took Rogue’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You often doubt your own brightness, but I hope Remy can help you realise your true potential.”

“Thanks, Ororo.” 

Soon enough, the only people left in the room were her, Remy and Kurt. 

“You want anythin’ to eat, Chère?” Remy asked. The sizzle of bacon accompanied his voice, but the thought of eating something so greasy at that point in time turned Rogue’s stomach.

“Ah’m fine with just a piece of fruit for now, Sugah. What are you doin’ up anyhow? You seemed pretty sleepy to me.” 

“How could ah sleep after ah’d been abandoned?” Remy winked at her as he spoke, preemptively assuaging her fears before they even had time to form, “Ah got another ten minutes but ah was starvin’.”

“You two are sickening.” Kurt teased. 

“Ah endeavour to exceed expectations, mon ami.” Remy joked. 

Rogue couldn’t help but roll her eyes at her soulmate. He was a showman to his core. How he was such a successful thief was beyond her when he seemed to thrive under the attention of others. 

Apple slices mixed with her favourite vanilla yogurt were placed on the table in front of her before she’d even had the chance to contemplate what sort of fruit she was going to have for breakfast. She turned, heart fluttering, and bestowed a thankful smile on the man beside her.

“Thanks, Sugah.”

“Don’ worry ‘bout it, Chère. Ah’m gonna go an’ prepare myself for my talk with Scott. Ah don’ doubt that Jean will be there too.”

With a final loving look directed towards her and a friendly smile at Kurt, Remy swept out of the kitchen, leaving behind the scent of his faded cologne.

“I do not know if I have ever seen someone look so in love, Sister.” Kurt laughed lightly. The teasing light in his eyes ignited the trademark sibling annoyance Rogue had become all too familiar with after she and Kurt had grown closer. It was light and bubbly, never truly malicious, wrapped in the assurance that she would love the annoying person she called a brother no matter what happened. 

“Ah’m sure whenever you find your soulmate ah’ll tease you jus’ the same, Kurt.” Rogue rebutted, “In fact, ah promise ah’m gonna tease you more. Ah’ll be insufferable.”

“You’re already insufferable.”

“Ah should hang you outta the window, see how insufferable you think ah am then.”

Kurt laughed heartily, head thrown back and teeth gleaming white in the mid-morning light. “I would like to see you try, Rogue.”

She chuckled to herself, ease rolling through her entire body. She had never thought, when she first joined the X-Men and she was faced with nothing but malice and suspicion, that she’d find such comfort. She thought she was cursed to a lonely existence, but she had been oh so very wrong. She had found friends, she had found her family, and she had found her soulmate. Life was far from perfect, she wasn't naive enough to think that this one blip of contentment would last, but she was happy to bask in it while it lasted. 

“Now, I demand details about your date. Though you can spare me the details of your later endeavours, I may not have enhanced hearing like our friend Logan, but you were plenty loud enough when you passed by my door.” He directed an all too knowing look her way. 

“Ah wasn’ gonna tell you ‘bout that anyway,” Rogue huffed, “If you must know, the date was lovely.”

“Where did he take you?”

“Some fancy restaurant. Ah don’ know what it was called, an’ ah don’ think ah wanna know. Ah think ah’d have a heart attack if ah looked up the menu prices. Then he,” Rogue couldn’t help the giggle that slipped past her lips at the memory, “An’ then he took us to some look-out point. Said that ah didn’ wanna deny me the ‘first date experience’. It was like in the movies when teenagers go and make out in their cars. It was so corny. But ah loved it. It was amazing, Kurt. Best first date ah could’a asked for.”

“It sounds just like Remy to be sentimental and cheesy in his date planning. I think he’s been planning a date with you since the moment you laid eyes on each other.” Kurt stated as though he was speaking gospel. 

“Now who’s the cheesy one?” Rogue teased, “But ah reckon you’re probably right. That man… Well ah think last night just proved that whoever’s up there pairin’ us up made the right choice. He really do love me unconditionally. He sees me beyond my mutation. An’ ah know that the rest of you do too, but Remy really sees down to my core.”

Kurt’s smile, which had thus far been teasing, took on an edge of genuine caring. In his furry face, Rogue saw joy at her own happiness and gratefulness that she’d found someone who cared for her in all the right ways. 

“What makes you say that? Not that I could ever doubt you. It is clear that his heart beats for you; he would do just about anything for you.”

“Just before we had dessert, we got to talkin’ a bit about my mutation. He was sayin’ everything he’s said in the past. How he loves me whether we can touch or not. He was sayin’ that he understands why ah want to wear the inhibitor, but he’s scared that it’s gonna hurt me. Ah expected all that, but then he started talkin’ ‘bout how he thinks part of the reason why I have a lack of control with my mutation is ‘cause ah’m scared of myself.” Rogue explained in a low voice. “Ah am scared of myself, Kurt, scared of what ah can do. An’ don’ ah have the right to be? My mutation manifested an’ ah put someone in a coma that they still haven’t woken up from. But ah know he’s probably right.”

For a minute, Kurt was silent, yellow eyes roaming across her countenance. It was a tired conversation. One that she had rehashed many times over. She’d spoken at length about her fear, but perhaps this was a turning point.

“Ah… Ah know that in my head, there are two boxes that make me up. There’s Rogue and there’s Anna-Marie. Rogue is who ah am when I’m bein’ brave. Ah’m facing sentinels and discrimination. Ah’m kicking ass. Anna-Marie hasn’t seen the light in years, she’s everythin’ ah hoped to forget about home. Ah tried to leave her on the banks of the Mississippi a long time ago, but she’s still here. No matter how brave Rogue is, no matter how far back ah stuff Anna-Marie, the fear from both of them bleeds into everything ah feel. Rogue is just the well-built mask to hide Anna-Marie from the world, but she ain’t doin’ much to hide me from… me. Ah don’ know, Kurt, ah must sound crazy.”

“No, my dear, you do not.” Kurt reassured her gently, “There comes a time for all of us mutants when we must reconcile with what we are. You started the process, but never progressed out of fear. Perhaps Remy is right, once you move past your fear, you may yet be able to control your power.”

“But how? How do ah just stop bein’ scared?” Desperation leaked into Rogue’s voice.

“It may help to look inwards, and thankfully, we know two people who are more than capable of lending a hand.”

As Remy had predicted, Jean was sitting in on his meeting with Scott, so Rogue couldn’t immediately ask for her friend’s help, but she was sure to pull Jean to the side after their vigorous training session in the danger room that afternoon.

“Hey, Rogue, how can I help you?” Jean asked kindly. 

“Can ah talk to you about somethin’? It ain’t nothin’ bad…” Rogue said hesitantly. She could see the cogs turning in Jean’s mind as she tried to determine what could have prompted Rogue’s approach. Whilst they were good friends, neither one of them sought the other out regularly to hash out their problems. Jean preferred to talk to Scott and Ororo. Rogue preferred to talk to Remy, Kurt or Logan.

“Of course, Rogue. How about we meet in the day room after we’ve cleaned up? Your anxiety is practically flowing off of you, and I find that the day room is quite cozy.” Jean’s gentle smile didn’t falter once despite the nervous energy Rogue was sure she was radiating in buckets. 

“That sounds perfect. I’ll meet you in 30 minutes.”

They went their separate ways for the time being. Despite having a somewhat nebulous plan that Kurt had helped her think of that morning , Rogue was far from reassured. The thought of gaining control of her mutation was as much of a liberating concept as a terrifying one. It was possible that there was nothing to fix and this was just how she was, relegated to never experiencing human touch without spades of interference, but she didn’t want to give up. She wanted to touch her soulmate, but more than that, she wanted to do it for herself. She wanted to prove to herself that she didn’t have to be afraid of the monster she feared she could be. 

She’d barely stepped out of the room before Remy swept in and kissed the air an inch away from her cheek. Despite not being able to feel the sensation of his lips on her skin, the sentiment was appreciated.

“How you doin’, mon coeur? Ah t’ink that was de most tirin’ session we’ve had in a good long time.” Remy grumbled as he fell into step with her.

“Ah think Scott must be preparin’ us for some sorta resistance to that damn legistlation being reversed. Woudn’ be the first time people got too enthusiastic about their disagreement.” Rogue couldn’t help the heavy sigh that breezed through her lips. It seemed that no matter what they did, nobody would be happy. “How was your talk with Scott?”

“Not too bad. Jus’ the usual ‘we’re a team an’ teams tell each other things that can jeopardise mission’ talk. He apologized for blowin’ up de other day, so did Jean. Ah get where they was comin’ from, ah ain’t silly. Ah wouldn’ be happy if they kept somethin’ like that a secret.”

“Yeah, well like ah said, we’ve all done stuff we ain’t proud of, Sugah. Just matters that you’ve grown from it and you’re remorseful. And ah know well enough how remorseful you are. Ah felt it myself.”

They came to a stop outside their separate changing rooms. Rogue looked up into her lover’s open face, his gentle eyes and ever-present smile soothed some of the roiling anxiety in her chest. 

“Ah’m gonna speak to Jean about tryin’ to get to the root of my fear.” She said rather suddenly, “Ah think you’re right and it might help me with my mutation, but even if it doesn’, ah’ll be better off in the long run.”

That ever-present smile with mischievous undertones that graced Remy’s face more often than not tilted into a wide, beaming grin. 

“That sounds good, Chère. You let me know if you need any help wit’ anythin’.”

“Ah will, Sugah. Ah best get to showerin’, ah’m meeting Jean in half an hour.” 

As was becoming tradition, Remy placed a kiss on the back of Rogue’s hand before they parted. The wink he bestowed upon her was so cheesy and cliche that she couldn’t help but roll her eyes with a chuckle. She’d never get tired of thinking about how much she loved the man in front of her. 

Rogue didn’t often visit the day room, but she could see why Jean was partial to it. The cozy sofas, fireplace and deep-toned rugs gave the entire room the feel of being enclosed, but not in such a way that evoked claustrophobia. 

“How can I help you, Rogue?” Jean asked kindly. She was sitting comfortably in one of the two armchairs the room hosted, her keen blue eyes filled with warmth.

Exhaling heavily, Rogue fidgeted with the edge of her glove and stared into the unlit fireplace as she worked up her nerves. Logically, she knew there was nothing to fear, but what had come so easily with Remy and Kurt was harder to say to Jean. Her friend, of course, could just telepathically ascertain what Rogue wanted to talk about, but that wouldn’t do her any good. The first part of admitting she needed help was saying it out loud. 

“Ah wanna get control of my mutation, Jean, an’ ah think the thing holdin’ me back is my fear of myself. Fear of what ah can do to someone if ah don’ maintain a distance from everyone. An’… Ah need to confront that fear, ah need to… Ah need to go back, mentally, to where the fear started an’ confront it. Face it, so ah can pick through it an’... Ah can’t control my fear, ah know that, it’s a human emotion, but at least ah can start the process of conquering it.” Rogue explained slowly. She couldn’t look Jean in the eyes as she spoke, instead, she kept her eyes glued to the strands of fiery hair tucked behind her right ear.

“So what are you asking me to do, Rogue?” Jean asked. She knew what Rogue was asking, but Rogue needed to take the final step. She’d explained the problem, she had stumbled through the possible solution, and now she needed to ask for the tools to facilitate her journey.

“Help me. Cast my mind back through my memories so that ah can understand my fear better.”

Jean smiled, her whispered words of affirmation were lost on Rogue as she fell backwards in time. 

Chapter Text

The Mississippi sun heated her skin, and a summer breeze brought with it the scent of a home she had long since abandoned. The forest floor was spongy, but not wet, beneath her as she sat against one of the many towering trees that bordered her old town. Within seconds, she recognised the memory she was in. Her head whipped around to behold the youthful visage of her first love, Cody. He looked so young. She supposed he was. His dirty blond hair was ruffled in that way that the boys back then styled their hair. His white top had the faint signs of wear and tear that she knew he got from helping his parents out around the house and land. Eyes full of youthful adoration stared deeply into hers. 

She remembered feeling so excited. Everyone had said that first kisses were memorable. She’d read about them in the romance novels that her Aunt kept dotted around the house; the spark of emotion that they evoked was apparently like nothing else. She knew now, of course, that such references were nothing but metaphorical imagery to draw in readers’ attention. The spark that she felt, as Cody leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, was not a firework going off behind her eyes; the spark was her mutation developing. 

It was subtle, at first. A pulling beneath her skin that she’d initially mistook as nerves. But then the sensation had grown stronger, and Cody had stiffened against her. Flickering memories filtered through her mind, things that she logically knew she had never experienced, and yet part of her was convinced that she had lived the life she was slowly absorbing from her crush. 

An all-encompassing fear soon subsumed the excitement and anticipation that she’d initially felt. Hers and Cody’s terror mingled until it was all that she understood. She threw herself away from his body, but the damage was already done. Skin waxy and eyes white, Cody fell backwards and slumped against the tree that they had been cuddling against only minutes before.

Even with horror and self-loathing pounding through her veins, she jerked forwards as if to ensure that Cody was still alive; she only just managed to stop herself in time. Her hands hovered uselessly over his barely moving body. Every breath he took was laborious. 

Through the fog of fear and despair, she carefully pulled her jacket over Cody’s arms, careful not to let her skin touch his, before taking hold of him and half-dragging, half-carrying him towards the edge of the forest. As she stumbled under his weight, praying to a God whom she wasn’t sure she believed in, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to stick around. Everyone knew that Cody was sweet on her, they’d seen them go into the forest together, giggling like the teens they were. When she reached the edge of the town, she’d propped Cody up the best she could against the closest building, she had yelled help as loud as she could and then she had run into the forest, never to be seen again.  

Experiencing that memory again, she felt just how profound the fear she’d experienced had been. That had been where the fear had begun. She had nearly killed someone at the age of 15, most people would be traumatised by such an experience. Sometimes, she still had nightmares about the event. Cody’s voice, a voice that was ingrained into her memory not only because of his impact on her life but also because some of his presence still lingered in her, would shout obscenities at her. He would deride and torment her. The words were not his, they were her own, self-loathing brought to light via the medium of her victim. 

Looking back now, through the lens of a woman who had fought in countless fights, she could dissect her emotions and thoughts in a way that she wouldn’t have been capable of before. There was no denying that she had hurt Cody. But it hadn’t been intentional. An unfortunate accident fueled by experiencing something new. Emotions had been running high. Excitement and then terror. 

Slowly, the memory of running through the forest faded away, and another took its place. 

Rain drizzled down upon her as she stood opposite Carol Danvers. Again, she was confronted with a time when her mutation had nearly killed someone. But there was a key difference between Cody and Carol. Where she had been experiencing a mixture of anticipation, fear and longing before pressing her lips to Cody’s, her fight with Carol had been fueled by nothing but misplaced anger. 

Her mothers had been smothering her, slowly insisting that she take more extreme actions in their pursuit of mutant respect. Just that morning, Destiny had lectured her at length about her place in the future.

“You are integral to our plan, Rogue,” Destiny insisted whilst Rogue brooded on her bed, “We cannot afford for you to act so frivolously.”

“Ah didn’ do anythin’!” she refuted.

“And that’s exactly the problem!” Mystique snapped back from the shadows, “You didn’t do what you were told to. You are not a child anymore! If you truly believe in our cause, then you should have no issue with doing what must be done to see mutant supremacy come to fruition.”

Even then, when she’d been in the thick of her terrorist days, she had doubted her parents’ ideology. Supremacy. Was that not what the humans were subjecting the mutants to? It didn’t seem fair, it didn’t seem just, to simply turn the tides. She knew, inevitably, that her parents’ actions would only lead to a sustained war in which there was no victor. She’d never say it, but sometimes she looked at the actions of the X-Men and wondered whether they had the better idea. Coexistence. Tolerance. But she never voiced these thoughts to her parents, instead, she locked up all of her frustrations and anger into a box in her mind. It just so happened that Carol was the unlucky victim of her frustrations bubbling over. 

Carol was a formidable opponent, she would never deny that. Even after years had passed, after she had adjusted to both Carol’s powers and memories, she would wonder how she had managed to best the woman. They traded hits, blow for blow. Carol hit hard, but she didn’t let the pain stop her. She kicked Carol in the side. Hard. The woman curled into herself for a few seconds, but a few seconds in a fight were the difference between life and death. She had a mission: Take Carol’s powers and memories so that they could launch an attack against the Avengers. Whipping off her glove, she took hold of Carol’s face. 

Normally, she had some degree of control, if not over her mutation then over herself. She could let go when she needed to; she never took more than she needed, lest she repeat her experience with Cody. But that day, she couldn’t let go. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t touched anyone, even for the sake of a mission or fight, for a few months. But, reflecting now, she thought that it was her anger and desperation for approval that kept her clinging to Carol.

The anger she’d started the fight with, seething at her mothers’ control, had not abated. Every blow exchanged had only heightened her irritation. Her emotions were running high. Somewhat counterintuitively, Carol’s own emotions were funneling into her head making it even harder to let go. Her frustration and Carol’s fear were conjoining into a ghastly aberration that roared in her chest, baying for blood. 

With great effort, she pulled away. New power rushed through her body, a foreign sensation that would become all too familiar as Carol’s presence settled in her body. She threw Carol’s body off the bridge they’d been fighting on and turned away. 

Hindsight was 20/20, and now she could understand what had been running through her head. Her anger, the thing she had been clinging to whenever her mind wandered to this memory, was nothing but a front. Just like when she’d gone too far with Cody, she had been scared. Scared that she was doing the wrong thing. Scared that her mothers would stop loving her if she turned her back on the cause. Scared that she would hurt someone irreparably, just as she had before. And that final fear had been proven correct, cementing the notion in her head that she was not safe. She was a living weapon, just as her mothers intended her to be. 

That night, all of her worries had been consolidated. A wall was erected in her mind. A wall constructed of fear, apprehension and bursts of anger. On either side of that wall existed a fraction of who she truly was. The side that faced the world housed Rogue, mutant fighter for the X-Men. She put on a brave face and did all she could to atone for her past actions. On the other side, perpetually curled in on herself, existed Anna-Marie. The scared teenage girl who had experienced a life of touch but was too scared to venture out again out of fear. She could not exist wholly without incorporating the two, and the only way to join them was by carving away the wall of fear that separated them. But how? How was she to fight through the justified fear that had boxed her into her own mind?

It seemed hopeless until a spark caught her eye. Ignoring the slowly degrading scene around her, she ventured closer to the spark of gold and white that had suddenly developed along the black wall of self-loathing. It shone like a star in the velvety expanses of the night sky. As she ventured closer, the heavy feeling in her chest lightened. Every step incurred incremental reprieves until finally she stood before the slowly expanding fracture. Hesitant fingers reached up to run the course of the crack and she was sucked into another memory. 

Dappled sunlight warmed her cheeks as she threw her head back in laughter. The forest floor was spongy beneath her hands, the tree’s bark was sturdy at her back and she was blessed by the sight of a genuinely smiling Remy. This had been a few months after he had joined the team. He had already worked his way into her heart, though she didn’t yet know the full extent of just how much she’d come to care for the dark-eyed mutant. 

The scene inspired deja vu, it was all too similar to the day that her mutation had developed. But instead of the summer air of Mississippi, the spring winds of New York ruffled her unbound hair. Instead of her childhood crush, the man she was quickly finding herself infatuated with was smiling at her unabashedly, delight sparkling in his eyes at having made her laugh so freely. Instead of 15 and nervous, she was 20 and happy. Thoughts of what could go wrong if her skin happened to brush against Remy’s were far from her head. Her mutation was the furthest thing from her mind. She was just happy. No ever-present looming fear, no worries, no self-loathing. Just happiness and the emerging sense of ‘right’ that she got whenever she was with him. 

The memory was odd, not for its content but because there was no lingering dread aching in her chest. She was sure that if she revisited many of her memories post-mutation development, no matter how happy she was, there would always be that lingering fear at the back of her mind. But there was nothing of the sort. There was no fear. 

Her head rushed as she found herself in a very recent memory. Moonlight shone down upon them as they drove to the cheesy make-out spot Remy had picked out for them. Her eyes were drawn to his profile despite the beautiful moonlit nature around them. Nothing could compare, in her mind, to the beauty that was Remy LeBeau. He was handsome, she would admit, but it didn’t seem an adequate word to describe him. His spirit, his mind, his empathy and his visage could be described as nothing but beautiful. 

She knew, in her soul, that if she had removed the inhibitor at that moment and reached across to take his hand in hers, she wouldn’t have hurt him. She was too happy, too relaxed, too content; her fear could not cloud the moment. Blissful and in love, she hadn’t recognised that the persistent tide underneath her skin had receded to nothing but gentle ripples- easily controllable. 

Figments and moments flashed before her at an almost incomprehensible speed. The sight of Kurt laughing happily as they splashed in a lake. Kitty and Jubilee as they stacked magazines on Logan whilst he pretended to sleep, but she knew better. The slight tilt at the corner of his lips betrayed him, but they all pretended. Storm and Jean beckoned her closer as they walked down a beach. They had been in California for reasons she had deemed too unimportant to remember, but the warmth of their acceptance still burned bright. The autumn sun beating down on her as Hank and Scott engaged her in their debate about the benefits of their current garden layout. 

In the absence of fear, as her heart grew stronger, she was at peace.

Quite suddenly, she found herself back at the towering, dark wall. All that existed around her were tumultuous black clouds, thundering with discontent and self-loathing. Frissions of gold and white had snaked across the face of the barrier, cracking the exterior to show a nebula of stirring emotions within. Hope was spreading through her fear. 

She took a step back and beheld the expanse of fear before her. She knew she could not shy away from her fear, she could see now that it was doing nothing but keeping her divided. She glanced back and saw the vague outline of what she had become. Rogue looked back at her, eyes sad with everything she’d seen. But there was a strength in the set of her shoulders. She knew that she would do what she must to protect the mutants of Earth, including her family. She was fueled by her worry and fear. At the back of her mind, it was all she knew. This was the woman she had needed to be to cope with the distance that existed between her and everybody she loved, the woman who put the fight first and her emotions second. She couldn’t help but wonder, as she looked upon the woman she had become, if she could have figured this whole mess out sooner had she truly reflected on her journey thus far. If she had taken a moment to stop and think about the underlying emotions that she greeted like an old friend every time she woke up, would she have been able to touch others sooner? Would she have confirmed that Remy was her soulmate sooner? 

There was no point dwelling on ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’ now. She could not change the past, she could only look to the future and work to reflect on herself more so that she could fight the wall of fear that was steadily starting to crumble. And the only way to bring down the wall entirely was to acknowledge the girl who wept eternally beyond her view.

Anna-Marie had not seen a moment's reprieve from her grief and sorrow since she had taken on her new name. The poor girl had been abandoned, relegated to stewing in the worst moment of her short life, over and over again. She so rarely saw the light of day. Stuffed into the recesses of her soul and mind, Anna-Marie only saw light when she was with Remy. In those moments when her soulmate made everything else in the world fade away, she forgot about her fear, and Anna-Marie was allowed to rise to the surface and breathe for a few moments before the fear returned and she was drowned once more by the tides of self-hatred. 

The only way that she could control her power was to recognise and actively work to overcome her fear, and the only way to do that was to allow herself to be whole again. No more Rogue and Anna-Marie. They would join to be who she was always meant to be. Anna-Marie was Rogue as much as Rogue was Anna-Marie. Two sides of the same coin. Two facets of the same person who needed to meet again.

Gently, she took Rogue’s hand in hers. The cold leather of Rogue’s gloves against her skin cemented her resolve. She looked into Rogue’s emerald eyes, she beheld the fear in them. 

“Come on.” She whispered into the void of her mind, “Time to make us whole again.”

Slowly, together, they stepped into the cracked wall. Emotions hit them from all sides. Anger. Desperation. Uncertainty. Love. Happiness. Exhilaration. Hope. They emerged on the other side with tears in their eyes.

The other side didn’t look much better than the side she had just pulled Rogue from. Stormy clouds and crashing waves surrounded the curled form of Anna-Marie, still clothed in the clothes she wore when she’d hurt Cody. Her cries of anguish echoed louder than the thunder sounding around them. Anna-Marie’s screams punctured her heart, but the only way to soothe her was to step closer. 

Steeling herself, she tried to draw closer to the inconsolable teenagers, but Rogue held her back. She looked back at the woman’s face and saw blatant uncertainty. She could understand the woman’s hesitation. To join with Anna-Marie would be to confront her fears and weaknesses head-on, a prospect that was daunting, but Rogue needed to confront the anguish otherwise, she would never heal and grow from the experience. 

“If we want to get better, we gotta let her know that everythin’ is gonna be ok.” she stated firmly, “Ah know you can be brave, you’ve done it to save other people. You just gotta do it again to save yourself.” 

With lingering hesitation, Rogue tightened her grip on her hand and stepped towards the tumultuous storm of a teenager hunched over in front of them. Together, they knelt by her side and placed their hands on her shoulders. 

Tear-streaked cheeks and red-rimmed eyes looked up at them, pain lining every inch of the girl’s youthful visage. 

“Ah’m a monster,” she choked, “Nobody is gonna want to be anywhere near me! Ah just hurt everythin’ ah touch!”

She turned to Rogue and looked pointedly at the gloves she still wore. She didn’t need to say the words; the message was clear in her gaze, ‘If you can’t touch yourself, how can you expect to feel comfortable touching others?’. Slowly, Rogue drew her glove from her hand. With only a moment's hesitation, as if to reassure herself that she was doing this to save someone, she placed her bare hand against the weeping girl’s cheek. 

“Ah know you’re scared, Sugah,” Rogue’s voice seemed to echo around the liminal space they were in, “Ah’m scared too. We’ve got plenty to be scared of. But… That fear is what’s holdin’ us back. If you’re scared of everythin’, you can’ try nothin’ new, can you?”

Sniffling, Anna-Marie shook her head, “But ah could really hurt someone! Ah nearly killed Cody. You nearly killed Carol. We ain’t safe to be around.” Just like Rogue’s voice, Anna-Marie’s words echoed, seemingly coming from all three of their mouths at once. 

“We nearly killed those two, and we’re gonna regret it for the rest of our life, but the past is in the past. We need to forgive ourselves. We ain’t always keyed up like that, not every day. Our emotions were high, just like Remy said- we lost control. Ah don’ think we’ve ever had much control, and that’s cause we’re constantly scared.”

“Ah can’ just stop bein’ scared.” Anna-Marie whimpered. 

“You don’ have’ta. We’ll work on it. Remy will help. So will everyone else. It ain’t gonna be instant, but we can work to control this power. But we can only do that together.”

Rogue’s hand against Anna-Marie’s cheek, her thumb gently wiped away the solitary tear that had slipped out during their conversation. 

“We’ll face it together.” she whispered reassuringly.

Anna-Marie nodded, “Together.” 

Drawn together like magnets, Anna-Marie fell into Rogue’s arms, holding the older version of her tight. Rogue returned the gesture, burying her face in the young girl’s hair. From the sidelines, she watched, a sense of fulfilment slowly rising in her chest. As two sets of emerald eyes looked at her, she knew how to fight the fear that she had been plagued with since she was 15. She could not discard who she was before, she could not forget what she had done, she needed to face both her past and her future with a fortified heart knowing that she had people she loved to help guide her. She was not solely Rogue. She was not solely Anna-Marie. She was both. And she would grow from the seeds of both into the woman she could be proud of. 

She regained consciousness gently. Her eyes fluttered open and she beheld the sight of Jean’s gentle smile. 

“Did you do everything you wanted?”

“Ah think so.”

Chapter Text

She thanked Jean profusely for her help before rushing away to find either Kurt or Remy, luckily for her, both men were sitting together in the drawing room playing cards. The sight of them shoving each other like they’d been friends their entire lives set alight feelings of comfort and love in her chest, the love she felt for the two men was almost consuming.

With the memories of her past actions fresh in her mind, she couldn’t help but feel grateful that she had found people who loved her unconditionally, despite her past. Before her, there existed two of the only people in the world that she knew did not want her for any other reason than the pure desire to love her. Whilst she loved her mothers dearly, she was not naive to the fact that they had sought her out and kept her by their side throughout her later teenagehood so that they could use her. They may have come to love and care for her, but their mission was always at the forefront of their minds, especially Mystique’s. And here, in the X-Men, she had a family, but that was built upon years of going to battle with each other. Past precedent suggested that if she were to turn her back on them, they might try to get her back, but there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t let her go on the Professor’s orders. After all, there were more important members in the team, more important pawns for Charles Xavier to manoeuvre and play with in his drawn-out morality battle with Magneto. 

“Mon coeur,” Remy smiled brightly upon noticing her in the doorway, “Ah t’ink it’s lucky you showed up, ah was ‘bout to show Kurt here what real cheatin’ looks like.”

“Were you not already, my friend?” Kurt replied with joy shimmering in his amber eyes. 

“Ah don’ think Remy can go through one game without cheatin’ just a bit. Just ain’t in his nature.” Rogue joked as she crossed the room and ran a gloved hand through Remy’s hair.

She wanted nothing more than to duck down and press a kiss to his forehead or cheek in a gentel show of affection, but despite her recent revelations, she didn’t trust herself. Not yet. She would soon, though; she was going to make sure of it. So, instead of the kiss to lightly freckled skin that she desperately wished to bestow, Rogue pulled Remy’s head back slightly using his hair, so that she could look deep into his beautiful eyes as she blew him a teasing kiss. 

“Don’ go pullin’ my hair too hard, Chère, ah might react in a way dat you don’ want your brother seein’.” Remy teased, but Rogue knew that it was an all-too-serious warning. Their night together had been very insightful. 

Chuckling lowly, Rogue relinquished her hold on her partner’s hair and took a seat beside him. Now that she was closer, she could see that they had been playing Rummy. I was not Remy’s preferred game, but it was one that she personally enjoyed moderately. 

“So, how was your time with Jean?” Kurt asked eagerly. His cards had long since been abandoned face-up on the table. After a quick glance at Remy’s cards, still loosely held in his hand, she saw that Kurt had no hope of winning.

“It was… Insightful. Ah think ah already knew most’a what ah found out, but ah needed it reinforced. Ah went through some of my memories. My mutation manifestin,' and me hurtin’ Cody. Drainin’ Carol on that bridge. And then, ah just saw so many happy moments. Ah’ve been scared for a long time, but there have been so many times when ah jus’ forgot ah was supposed to be scared. Lookin’ back, it’s like this buzzin’ under my skin went away, ah was just always too absorbed in whatever happy thing was goin’ on around me to notice. And ah realised that ah’ve been separatin’ myself into a before and an after. But ah ain’t just Anna-Marie or just Rogue, ah’m both. You’d think ah wouldn’ need to relearn that, sounds stupid to say out loud.”

She chuckled to herself somewhat meanly, but her companions didn’t affirm her self-chastisement. They offered her loving smiles and understanding gazes. Yes, she could trust them to understand her plight and aid in her growth. 

“Ain’t nothin’ stupid about it, Chère.” Remy stated, “Ah t’ink we can all get caught up wit’ our mutant persona an’ our real selves. Makes sense to me dat you separated the two completely to cope with your fear.”

“Yah.” Kurt nodded wisely, “A coping mechanism of a scared 15-year-old. What matters now is that you are ready to combat your fear.”

Rogue nodded emphatically in agreement. What mattered now was that she was ready to fight her fear, and with fresh memories of happiness and love running through her veins, thick like treacle, she thought that it was a goal that she would be able to achieve. 

Not wanting to waste a moment, the three mutants vacated the Drawing Room in favour of the back garden. Rogue explained that she thought it was best to give the whole ‘controlling her emotions in order to control her powers’ ordeal a try in a wide-open space with no associations to violence, rather than in the room they used to simulate sentinel attacks. 

“Seems like a smart idea to me, Chère.” Remy grinned, kissing the air beside her forehead, “Ah can’ wait till ah can put one on you for real.”

“You did plenty of that last night, Sugah,” Rogue teased back, “Ah think you can be a bit patient with me, yeah?”

“Ah, the scent of love in the air,” Kurt bamfed behind them, throwing his arms around their shoulders as he appeared, “You two flirt egregiously, I think I will be sick of you soon enough.”

“Like ah haven’t heard you say worse, Kurt.” Rogue scoffed. 

They laughed and joked their way into the garden. It wasn’t until they were standing in the middle of the field that Rogue felt the nerves she was trying to suppress start to rear. 

“How do you want to do this, Rogue?” Kurt asked gently. 

She was silent for a moment, pondering on the perfect strategy to test her (hopefully) newfound control. The buzzing sensation underneath her skin alerted her to the fact that her mutation was certainly active. She just needed to turn it off. Remember that she was in control, not her emotions, she was in control. She was Rogue, she was Anna-Marie, she was one woman combined. 

“Ah guess ah’ll just… Ah’ll meditate on it a bit, turn it off best ah can. Then ah think ah’m gonna need a volunteer.” She looked at her companions with complete trust, and her devotion was returned in kind. 

“Jus’ tell us when your ready, mon coeur, we’re here for when you need us.” 

Smiling, Rogue closed her eyes and reflected on what she’d discovered a short time ago. Fear was what had been guiding her for all of these years, but those flashes of hope and happiness, glimmering in the miasma of her worry, were of paramount importance. 

She clung to one of those glimmers of hope now: The memory of Kurt popping up behind her just minutes prior. She took that memory and stretched it into a string, a string with which she wove a memento of her love for her brother. It was almost perfect, but something was holding her back. Something was bothering her at the back of her mind, a dissociation that had been rectified inside of her, but needed to be replicated within her family. 

“This ain’t gonna work,” Rogue muttered to herself. 

“What was that?” Kurt asked.

“This ain’t gonna work.” She repeated loud enough for the two men to hear, “Ah need to… I don’ know. Ah can just feel it in me that ah need to solidify somethin’. Ah know in here,” she jabbed a finger into the side of her head, “That ah’m both Anna-Marie and Rogue, but somethin’ is keepin’ me from being able to, ah don’t know… use that to control my powers. Ah need to keep myself straight if ah want to control my powers.”

They were quiet for a minute, heads bowed in contemplation. She could feel the power writhing underneath her skin, though it was not as prevalent as before. She just needed that push.

“Ah need to accept Anna-Marie back completely.” She declared, “Startin’ now, outside of the field, ah want y’all to call me by my birth name. Ah think that’s the first step. Ah know how to think of happy things. Once ah get into the swing of things, it won’t even be a conscious thought. It’ll be like a switch.”

“O’course, mon coeur.” Remy affirmed, accompanied by Kurt’s nods, “Whatever you t’ink will help.”

It was odd, she found, to hear her birth name said so frequently around the house. 

“Hey, Anna, do you want to finish this puzzle with me?”

“Anna-Marie, my dear, would you mind popping down to the lab soon? I would just like to ensure the inhibitor hasn’t caused any side effects. It would also be an opportune moment to ensure you’ve healed properly.”

“Anna, could you please tell your boyfriend he can’t keep stealing my cars? I think you’re the only one he’ll listen to.”

“Anna-Marie! Don’t cheat! I was totally about to kick your ass.”

Her name seemed to fall from the lips of those around her as easily as her mutant moniker, and with every repetition of it, she felt something in her fixing. It seemed as though the unification of her two personas in her mind was finally starting to yield results. At least once a day, Anna-Marie found herself venturing to a quiet space and concentrating on the buzzing underneath her skin and with every day that passed, it was easier and easier to turn the sensation off. Her terror eased, and her contentment rose to replace it. 

A plan was forming in her mind, a plan to surprise her boyfriend with her touch, but keeping her plan a secret from Remy was hard. He was attentive, she’d give him that. Every day he checked in on her to see how she was feeling and asked if she was making any progress. And every day she would reassure him and squeeze his hand in hers. 

And yet, despite her increasing control and her desire to touch Remy again, skin-to-skin, Rogue was hesitant. Despite confronting her fear and working tirelessly to face the false beliefs she had been plagued by since she was 15, she couldn’t help but worry that if her control faltered at the wrong time, she’d backslide and never be able to recover her progress. 

“Ah know that ah ain’t gonna master control unless ah can get over that fear, but ah don’t know how to overcome it.” Anna-Marie huffed, frustration colouring her tone as she spoke to Kurt. 

Kurt twirled the daisy he’d picked between his fingers, a contemplative frown on his face, “Control, even for the likes of Charles, is not absolute, Anna-Marie. All of us have moments when we falter. If I am startled, sometimes I can not help but teleport. You have seen that Logan loses control of his claws after particularly harrowing nightmares.”

“Ah guess…” Anna-Marie hummed.

“It is not easy, but if you know what causes you to lose control, then you can brace yourself for when that trigger occurs.”

The siblings fell silent, eyes straying away to watch the sun set, streaking the sky in shades of orange, pink and purple. With every day that passed, she felt her control tightening on her mutation. She spent most of the day basking in the absence of the buzzing beneath her skin, relishing in the knowledge that she could call upon her mutation whenever she wanted. She was in control, unlike when she had been kidnapped. She simply had to remind herself of this fundamental fact.

“Ah think ah’m gonna surprise Remy tonight,” Anna-Marie whispered into the comfortable silence. Almost unconsciously, a besotted smile tilted her lips. How could she ever express just how much she loved her soulmate?

“Be sure to be a bit quieter this time, I think we’d all like to be spared a repeat performance.” Kurt teased. His tail flicked at her in a manner she’d come to recognise as similar to a joking shoulder shove. 

“Oh, hush you.” She laughed. 

With anticipation humming in her veins, Anna-Marie watched the sun set. 

Every evening, no matter what they’d done that day, Remy and Anna-Marie found their way to one of their rooms to spend time together. She wasn’t sure if the tradition would erode the longer they were together, after all, they were in their honeymoon phase. Whether the tradition abated or not, Anna-Marie was glad for it whilst it lasted. The chance to simply exist with Remy behind her was enough to drive her through even the most challenging days. Sometimes they spoke at length about things that were of little consequence. Sometimes they sat in comfortable silence, each absorbed in their own world. 

As they sat on her bed together that evening, Anna-Marie could scarcely contain her excitement. 

“What have you got up your sleeve, mon coeur?” Remy laughed, “You’re practically buzzin’ off de bed.”

“It's nothin’, Remy, just watch the movie.” 

“If you say so, Chère, but ah want you to know that ah don’ believe you one bit.”

Leaned back on a mountain of pillows, Anna-Marie’s eyes darted across Remy’s face. As always, there was somewhat of a roguish smirk tilting his lips, but she didn’t think that took away from his beauty at all. She knew that he could read her exceptionally well. Perhaps it was because of their soulmate bond, maybe it was a skill he’d picked up in the Thief’s Guild during his youth, or maybe there was some other explanation. All she knew was that it was damn near impossible to keep a secret from Remy, and the longer you tried the more likely it was that he’d find you out.

With that in mind, Anna-Marie decided to just bite the bullet. With her eyes directed back at the screen of her laptop, she furtively peeled off her velvet glove. After it seemed like Remy hadn’t noticed the movement, she snaked her hand across the bed and took his hand in hers, silently holding her breath for his reaction. 

At first, it seemed like he hadn’t even noticed. He smiled over at her gently, acknowledging that their hands were touching, but not computing that it was her bare fingers with which he was entwining his fingers. It was only when he pulled her hand to his lips in a gesture so familiar that it was almost second nature that he seemed to recognise the significance of her action. Warm lips pressed to the back of her hand reverently. Simultaneously, black eyes widened in shock. 

“Chère…” Remy gasped. 

“Surprise.” 

Not a moment after the words had fallen from her lips, Anna-Marie was pulled into Remy’s arms. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her tight to his chest. His lips grazed the crown of her head as she spoke, pride choking his voice.

“Ah’m so proud of you, Anna. Ah knew you could do it.”

Warmth suffused her chest, rushing through her veins and filling her heart with a golden feeling so overwhelming and all-consuming she couldn’t possibly put a single name to it. 

“Thank you, Remy. Ah don’ know if ah could’a done it without you.” She whispered into his chest. 

“‘Course you could’a,” Remy asserted confidently, “Ah reckon ah just gave you the little extra encouragement you needed.”

“Ah never thought ah’d be callin’ you modest, LeBeau.” Anna-Marie teased as she emerged from the warmth of Remy’s chest, leaving behind the steady thumping of his heart against her ear to look adoringly into his eyes instead. 

“Ah can be modest, Miss Anna-Maire. Ah resent the notion that ah’m lacking in dat department.” 

“Ah think you make up for it in other ways.”

“An’ in what ways would dat be, mon coeur?”

In place of an answer, Anna-Marie placed a guiding hand on her lover’s cheek and pulled him into a gentle kiss. A kiss facilitated not by a device that turned her stomach and made her head pound, but by her own willpower. She had not conquered her fear, far from it, but there was very little to fear when she had Remy in her hands. 

When they pulled away from the kiss, they didn’t go far. Something in her couldn’t bring herself to venture far lest she break the soft moment they’d found themselves in. With their forehead pressed together, Anna-Marie could admire Remy’s eyes up close. 

“You have such beautiful eyes, Sugah.” she whispered reverently.

For a split second, Remy looked shocked. She didn’t suppose that many people complimented that particular feature of his. Black sclera and striking red irises were not commonly associated with beauty, but she thought there was no other word that could possibly be more apt. 

“Ah could say the same for you, mon amour.”

Movie forgotten, the couple spent the rest of the night indulging in each other’s touch. Worshipful and tranquil, they lay beside one another with the knowledge that nothing could pull them apart. 

Chapter Text

In the years after Anna gained control of her mutation, she felt her self-concept soar to heights that she’d never before experienced. She had been far from a meek woman before she’d gained control over the internal battle that had raged in her for the better part of a decade, but there was something about having near-total autonomy over herself that brought forth a confidence that she never thought she’d have cause to express. 

Inevitably, there were moments when her control was lacking. When Logan disappeared for 3 months straight without explanation, she couldn’t help but become anxious for his safety. That anxiety, that fear, made it nearly impossible for her to exert the degree of control that she hoped for. There were days when she forced herself to sleep in a spare bedroom, away from her boyfriend, just so she wouldn’t accidentally sap the life from him during the night. When Logan did eventually reappear, battered and broken, she couldn’t help but cry with relief. 

“What happened?” she choked out through her tears, “Ah was worried sick. We were all worried sick!”

Around them, their family made noises of agreement.

“Just got caught up in some sort of secret government conspiracy. Normal Tuesday for me, Moonbeam. I always bounce back.” Whilst Logan’s words held merit, the man found more trouble than anybody she had ever known, they were not all that reassuring. 

“Well, next time, maybe try not to get kidnapped.” Jubilee croaked.

“I’ll try my best, Kid,” Logan chuckled, “But I ain’t making no promises.”

Aside from that, any lapse in control was mostly momentary. And despite still wearing gloves most of the time, it was an action borne out of habit more than safety. Anna-Marie, for the first time since she gained her mutation at 15, could see a future for herself where she was surrounded by people she loved. 

Given they were nearly constantly on some sort of world-saving mission, it wasn’t very often that Anna-Marie got the chance to truly indulge in nature. Growing up in rural Mississippi, she was constantly surrounded by the sounds of local wildlife and the scent of the breeze. There weren’t many things to miss, back where she grew up. The area was shrouded in dark memories of losing control and her parents leaving, but she’d never cast a negative shroud over the joy she found in nature. 

It had taken some convincing to get Remy to venture out on a hike with her initially. A city boy at heart, Remy much preferred the bustling streets and music-filled air of New Orleans to the sound of rushing rivers and bird calls. It was hard to make a spectacle of yourself only to disappear with heavier pockets when there was nobody around to entertain and subsequently pick-pocket. Nevertheless, once Anna-Marie had cajoled him into venturing into the forested areas of New York State with her, he had started to see the appeal.

Surprisingly, it had been Remy who had initiated their hike that day. He had insisted that it was the perfect weather to head out and that there was a place that he wanted to take her. Whilst she was surprised, Anna-Marie didn’t put up too many protests. How could she when he was playing right into her plan? As they trekked through the nature around them, she slowly started to recognise the landmarks they were passing by. Unconsciously, a grin spread across her face. 

“Are you takin’ me to Sunset Ridge, Sugah?” she asked.

“Damn, Chère, way to ruin my surprise for you.” Remy faux groaned. Though he had been excited to show off a new area of natural beauty, his enthusiasm for the hike had by no means diminished. 

Laughing, Anna-Marie pulled her boyfriend into a brief kiss by the back of his neck, “Ah’m still want to go there, Sugah. Ah haven’t seen a more beautiful view of the sunset from anywhere else.”

“Perfect. Lead the way, mon coeur.”

They hiked on, talking easily and swinging their hands between their bodies when they reached relatively flat stretches of land. It was nice to take a moment to themselves, away from their family and team. As much as she loved them, sometimes Anna-Marie simply wanted to spend some time with her soulmate alone.

Eventually, just as the sky was streaking itself in pastel shades of purple and pink, they reached their destination. Sunset Ridge was truly one of the most breathtaking places Anna-Marie had ever hiked to. The forest sprawled below them, humming with the sounds of animals and the wind. The sky, on especially clear days, inspired a sense of nostalgia in her chest that she couldn’t put words to. The only way she could hope to describe it was an all-encompassing sense of peace. The knowledge that nothing could go wrong as long as she stood there, Remy’s hand in hers, watching the sun set below the trees. 

Anna-Marie’s eyes flicked over to the man beside her. Her man. Her soulmate. It had been years since that day in the lab, when he promised that he’d love her no matter what. Even if some unseeable force hadn’t matched them up, Anna-Marie knew that they would have found each other. In every universe, she knew that they would fall in love. 

Taking a deep breath, she pulled her hand from Remy’s and pulled a box from her pocket. With his gaze fixed on the skyline, Remy didn’t notice her absence from his periphery until he turned to comment on the beauty of the view to her and instead found her on one knee with a ring box held open in her hands.

A shocked gasp huffed from his lips. 

“Ah know this ain’t exactly traditional, Sugah,” Anna-Marie started, “An’ ah know you were probably gonna ask any day now anyways, but ah wanted to do this. Ah could express how much ah love you in any number o' ways. Ah’ve done it every single day since we found out we’re meant for each other. Ah was showin’ how much ah cared for you even before that. You promised me that you’d stay by my side no matter what, an’ you have. Through my dips in control and my mothers' disapproval, you’ve stuck by my side. Remy Ettiene LeBeau, will you marry me?”

For once, Remy looked as though words completely evaded him. Her mouthy, fast-talking soulmate had finally been shocked speechless. 

“Ah t’ink you stole my thunder, Chère,” he whispered faintly. From his pocket, he drew a velvet box which, upon being opened, housed a simple silver ring with a shining emerald at the centre of the band. The metalwork was beautiful. Despite the delicate nature of the ring, it was clear that a lot of work had gone into crafting the tiny leaves that surrounded the inlaid gem.

Almost comically, Remy also got down on one knee, holding the ring out to her. 

“You haven’ answered my question, Sugah,” Anna-Marie laughed through the tears of joy starting to bead in her eyes. 

“O’course ah’m saying, yes.” Remy laughed loudly, though he couldn’t disguise his happy tears. “Now ah prepared a speech for this moment, an’ ah’m not lettin’ all dat practice go to waste.”

Unable to contain her mirthful laughter, Anna-Marie stood up, allowing Remy to enact the proposal as he had hoped to.

“Anna-Marie,” He started after clearing his tear-clogged throat, “Ah couldn’ say for sure when ah fell in love wit’ you. From de moment ah laid eyes on you in dat sewer, ah knew you were de one for me. Ah’ve said it before, an’ ah’ll say it a million more times, there is nothin’ in de world that will ever drive me away from you. We might argue, but at de end of every night for as long as ah live, my last wakin’ thought will be of my love for you. Anna-Marie, will you do me de absolute honour of bein’ my wife?”

“Yes!” She beamed, knocking Remy to the floor as she hugged him. 

With tears streaking their cheeks and the sunset bathing them in its light, Anna-Marie and Remy exchanged rings and kisses. 

Ordinarily, getting married only a month after the proposal was a bad idea. It usually signalled that something was wrong. Maybe the bride was pregnant and desperate to give birth in wedlock. Maybe there was some time-sensitive administrative reason. In the case of Anna-Marie and Remy, they simply didn’t see the point in dragging out the process. They weren’t going to change their minds, of that she was certain. They were both more than willing to have a courthouse wedding, to simply venture into the city, sign the papers and then have a nice meal, but their team had vehemently been against the idea. 

“No!” Jubilee shouted when Anna-Marie mentioned the plan off-handedly. "There is no way I am letting you just do a courthouse wedding. You and Remy deserve a whole event, with flowers, fancy cake, and all the other wedding staples.”

“We’re really not that bothered, Sugah.” Anna-Marie tried to reassure the young woman, “All that matters is that we’re legally married, and that can be done by signing some papers.”

“Is this just because you don’t want to plan? Because if that’s the issue, then I’ll happily plan it for you. Kitty will help me, I’m sure. Come on, Anna, you deserve to have a special day.” 

Despite no longer being the teenager that they had taken in all those years ago, Jubilee still had some impressive puppy-dog eyes. She struck Anna-Marie with the full force of the expression, practically begging for the opportunity to plan her wedding. 

“Ah… Well ah guess that if Remy agrees…” Anna-Marie had scarcely finished speaking before Jubilee jumped to her feet with an excited whoop. She threw herself into Anna-Marie’s arms, squeezing her tight whilst still keeping their faces separated. 

Despite her control over her mutation, Anna-Marie sometimes struggled with the feeling of bare skin touching her. She supposed it was a side effect of being forced to abstain for so many years. She could only touch Remy and occasionally Kurt for long periods without something akin to discomfort worming its way into her mind. 

When Remy agreed to have Jubilee plan their wedding, it seemed that all bets were off. There was a whirlwind of organisation that frankly impressed Anna-Marie. Only a month and a half after they’d proposed to each other, Remy and Anna-Marie were getting married. 

That was how Anna-Marie found herself sitting in the Drawing Room by herself, waiting for somebody to collect her so that she could walk down the aisle laid out in the back garden. The sun had been beaming for the entire morning, it was the perfect weather to get married in. She didn’t doubt that Ororo had had a hand in ensuring that the rain and clouds were kept at bay for the special day. 

Clothed in a green dress, the only indication that Anna-Marie was the bride lay in the flowing veil that was secured to her bun by a comb that Jean and Ororo had gifted her. It was a beautiful piece of jewellery that she had teared up at upon receiving. Around her neck lay the necklace Remy had gifted her all those years ago, the one she’d worn on their first date. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry until she was standing opposite Remy, but it was getting increasingly difficult to contain her tears of joy. 

“Knock, knock.” A familiar voice intoned from the door. 

Gasping, Anna-Marie spun in her chair to behold her mothers. She’d seen them, on occasion, over the years. But it had been so long since they'd faced each other without some ideological battle or literal battlefield between them. 

“Moms.” The battle with her tears was becoming futile. 

“We weren’t sure whether we should come,” Destiny hummed as she glided to Anna-Marie’s side and rested her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, “There were so many possible reactions that I saw, but I couldn’t bear to not at least try.”

“Ah’m glad you’re here,” Anna-Marie whispered, reaching out to beckon Mystique into their hug as she spoke, “Ah don’ know if everyone else will be though.”

“We’ll stick to the back of the crowd,” Mystique murmured into her daughter’s hair, “No point in making a scene. I doubt anyone will chase us out of our daughter’s wedding.”

“You never know.” Anna-Marie teased, “Just don’ do anything extreme an’ ah doubt anybody will have any problems. Except maybe Kurt…”

Both Destiny and Mystique’s shoulders slumped at the mention of their son. The revelation that her brother was conceived by both Destiny and Mystique together was shocking, to say the least. It had done very little to brighten Kurt’s feelings towards the two women, but Anna-Marie wasn’t in the habit of fixing her relatives’ problems. 

“We’ll talk to him after the wedding,” Destiny promised, “We just wanted to stop in and let you know that we’re here. We’re so proud of you, Rogue. We know that you might feel a little… Bitter about how we came to care for you, but we do genuinely love you. We’ve always wanted what’s best for you.”

Anna-Marie felt that she could argue until she was blue in the face that they put the mission before her more than they were willing to admit, but what was the point? It was her wedding, there was no use in arguing on what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of her life. 

Destiny squeezed her in a hug one more time before stepping back to allow Mystique to do the same. 

“I still don’t like Gambit, you’re far too good for him,” Mystique grumbled.

“He’s my soulmate, Mama,” Anna-Marie chuckled as she rolled her eyes, “We’re perfect for each other by definition.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it,” her mother grumbled. Nevertheless, when she stepped back, she took her daughter’s face in her hands and smiled kindly at her. They would always have their differences, but the care that they all held for each other was enduring. Through strife and conflict, Anna-Marie would always have a part of her that loved her mothers, and she knew that the same was true for them. 

After her mothers left, it wasn’t long before Logan entered the room. It appeared that he had put some effort into his appearance in deference to the special occasion, something that Anna-Marie was silently thankful for. She loved Logan in the way she supposed people tended to love their father, but she would have had a conniption if he had turned up to her wedding in his usual flannel and vest.

“You ready, Moonbeam?” Logan asked. There was a gentleness in his voice that she so rarely heard. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” 

Before she knew it, Anna-Marie found herself at the end of the aisle with Logan on one side and Kurt on the other. With her arms linked through theirs, she started her procession down the aisle. By the white arch wreathed in summer flowers, Remy looked breathtaking. His hair, which she was sure he’d attempted to tame, was mussed in a way that she knew meant he had been running his fingers through it, a nervous tick of his. She barely noticed the faces she passed on her way to Remy’s side. Jean-Luc. Emma Frost. Her mothers. Her teammates. A few Avengers. Deadpool, for some reason. Every single one of them fell away; all she cared about was her soulmate.

When they reached the end of the aisle and Remy took her arm from Logan, she felt as though her heart was going to beat out of her chest with the amount of love flowing through it.

“You look beautiful, mon coeur.” Remy whispered, his voice somewhat choked. 

“You ain’t lookin’ too bad yourself, Sugah,” she replied, battling to keep the tears from her voice. 

In unison, they turned to face Scott, who had offered to officiate the wedding nearly as soon as they’d told their family that they were going to have one instead of just going to the courthouse as they had previously planned.  

The start of the ceremony was a bit of a blur. All Anna-Marie could think about was the feeling of Remy’s hand in hers. All she cared about was the fact that she was soon to be married to the love of her life. 

“And now, the couple will exchange their vows.”

As planned, Remy went first, “Anna-Marie. Mon coeur. Like ah said when we proposed to each other, dere ain’t nothin’ in dis world dat will drive me away from you. Ah’ll say it every day until we’re old and grey. No matter what comes, no matter what we face ah know you’ll be by my side an’ ah’ll be by your’s. Ah love you more than ah could ever hope to express, but ah t’ink you know dat by now.”

Chuckling wetly, Anna-Marie squeezed Remy’s hands before starting her vows, “Sugah, ah think ah said everything ah wanted to when ah proposed to you. Ah love you to the ends of the universe. Nothin’ will ever stop me from lovin’ you. When you go through your dark times, ah’ll be by your side. When ah lose control, ah know you’ll be by my side. You’ll always have me, for eternity.”

Somewhere beside them, Scott continued with the ceremony, calling for the exchange of rings. In a haze of love and joy, Anna-Marie finally said, “I do.”

“You may kiss your spouse.”

Fueled by love, excitement and a hint of desperation, Anna-Marie pulled her husband to her chest, pressing their lips together in as tame a kiss as she could manage. Though she could tell from the various teasing cat-calls that her tamest kiss was not all that tame. 

She didn’t know what the future held for them, all she knew was that she was glad that she’d be facing it with Remy by her side.