Work Text:
Klyntar was not a place Rogue ever wanted to stay for long. Hell, it wasn’t a place she ever wanted to be at in general. But there she was, in that fucked up world between worlds, on that goddamn planet, trying to achieve something that could never be truly achieved.
It was a fight without end, exhausting and mind-numbing and the only thing that held them all together was each other.
For Rogue, the main thing that held her together was having Gambit by her side.
Sure, they weren’t always on the same team. Sure, they were separated from time to time, taken on different missions, but it wasn’t something new. They lived like this way before the entanglement hit as part of X-men.
And boy, did that entanglement tangle.
Fight after fight after fight. Brief respite of holding each other close, talking in hushed voices like the world would find them and drag them apart to another planet or dimension they now knew like the back of their hands. Making love to forget the horrors of the battlefield. To prove they were still alive and real. To remind them that even through it all, love prevailed.
And yet, here on this fucking planet that made her skin crawl every time.
Worse than that, the enemy team had their counterparts.
It always messed with her head, but Rogue worked around it by thinking those were just shapeshifters, illusions. Not the real her, not the real Remy. Nothing new there, after all the times she had to fight her mother…
So, Rogue was angrier than usual. Hit harder. Snarled louder. Kept diving alone into the very core of the enemy team, like a furious spear.
Gambit’s cards kept and kept hitting her, the energy echoing in her body as his charges fueled her, made her wounds close and bruises disappear, sustaining her. Enough for her to keep fighting, enough to hold the frontline until the rest of their team came.
But then the consistent barrage of healing charges stopped, and not in a way that meant he was pulling out a new deck. Rogue slammed Venom against the pillar, causing them both to cease. Strange and the others were already there, just shy of joining her on the point.
It was then that Rogue finally turned around to where Gambit was before only to see a scene that made her blood freeze in her veins.
Her mirror image, but shadows all wrong like there were different suns shining on them. The reflection’s hand on Gambit’s neck, clasped and squeezing as she raised him off the ground with ease, like he weighed nothing.
He wasn’t looking at her, staring at the reflection of her instead, his hand clutching a charged card, fingers trembling. Rogue bolted.
Gambit was gulping for air, trying to make not-his Rogue unclasp her hand, but she was unyielding. His staff lay somewhere to the side, he couldn’t get to it, couldn’t use it to fight off. Air rapidly was ending in his lungs, leaving him breathless, his head swimming, his vision going black. And worst of all, it was Rogue. Not his Rogue, but it was her. He knew how her mind worked, knew how she tricked herself. There was no point in pleading, she wouldn’t budge. And still…
“Sorry, darlin’.” Remy gripped her wrist tighter, hearing that barely there but shivering in her voice, seeing the hard look in her eyes. She was convincing herself, he knew. It was enough for his heart to beat a little less frantic, knowing it wasn’t that easy for her to snap his neck after all. “Honeymoon’s over.”
The crack was deafening. The cards rustled as they fell to the ground, drained of charge.
He dropped heavily against the Klyntar’s hellscape, seconds ticking away.
Rogue screamed.
“Remy!”
She didn’t hesitate to grab her all-wrong reflection and throw her to the nearby wall so hard the dust rained down. Before her opponent could collect herself, Rogue dropped next to Gambit who now lay motionless, his dark eyes open wide and staring nowhere.
“Sugah,” Rogue choked on air, like it was her getting strangled a moment before. Her hand lowered to his cheek, carefully, tracing his cheekbone with her thumb. The words stumbled as they fell from her lips. “I… I can’t feel ya…”
Rogue watched, horrified, as his body dissipated in her arms, how the solid weight of him disappeared like it was never there. His cards, his staff, him… All gone, as the rules of this sick place demanded.
She knew that he was being reborn or resurrected or remade or whatever this fuckin’ proccess of reversing death was called by that cosmic purple-clad child that toyed with them and their lives and their hearts.
She knew he wasn’t gone forever. But he was gone. And he was gone because of…
Rogue whirled around, her vision going red as she surged forward, grabbing her reflection and slamming her fist into her own face with a sickening crunch.
“How fuckin’ could you?!” Rogue roared, the body that was a perfect replica of her own struggling to fend off her assault.
Rogue only stopped when her counterpart’s knee drove hard into her stomach, making her fold in half and stumble back. The woman got to her feet, wiping away the blood from her mouth, taking a fighting stance that Rogue herself fell into in a breath.
Before either of them could land another hit, the battle around them burst to life with renewed vigor, dragging their attentions elsewhere, forcing them to work with their team and focus on other targets. But Rogue still felt that burning hatred, that pure incomprehension… How could she. How could she?
The fight went on, that fucking planet swallowing them all up with its poison, contaminating their minds and then…
She was cut off from the rest of the team. Blood running down her side, her thigh. Rogue clutched her side, panting, shallow breath still making her body jolt with pain on every inhale because her ribs were cracked.
And Gambit stood in front of her. But the shadows were all wrong, like there were different suns shining on them…
He took a shuddering breath, she saw, clutching her side tighter and taking a step back against the sticky wall. Rogue just stared up at him, pushing herself further into the goo that was making her sick, like she could fall right through it, hide, get away somehow.
“Never wanted it to end dis way, ma chère.”
Rogue screwed her eyes shut, expecting a hit of kinetic charge to finish her, not one of those warm, tingly, healing ones, but those that ate on your flesh and burned the very atoms of your being to the ground. She braced for impact, her hurt clenching behind her ribs. At least, he didn’t want to…
The wall behind her back disappeared, making her fall to the ground with a painful yelp. A card flicked at her suddenly detonated in the air without hitting its mark. And then cards followed - but not from where she was expecting.
Gambit’s reflection snarled at the light of explosions that were now attacking him with horrible accuracy, precise and fierce and merciless. Before Rogue knew what happened, he was slumped against one of the walls, staff still clutched in his hand yet none of his muscles moving, smoke whirling up from the burn on his chest.
“Rogue!”
She turned around, her eyes finding her Gambit running towards her, his cards shimmering with an already familiar healing charge. He flicked a handful at her before he could get close enough to drop on his knees and gather her in his arms.
“Remy…” Rogue breathed out, not wanting to look back, where his counterpart, she knew, still was. Her breathing wasn’t as painful already, but her heart ached. Rogue clawed into his coat, nuzzling into his neck. “Sugah, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”
“It okay,” Gambit stroked her hair, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head, holding her tight. “We almost done now. Just a moment, we be done.”
“She killed you… Ah killed you…” Rogue gasped, her breathing never slowing down even as her wounds healed fully, his energy filling her up, giving her strength.
“No, you didn’t,” Gambit argued, voice low, as soothing as he could muster, his lips still pressed against her hair. “You didn’t, chère. You okay. Gambit okay.”
She held him close, heartbeat thundering in her ears even as time slowed down.
Victory tasted bitter when it was earned like this.