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It's been a year since you disappeared. Disappeared— not left, because for all of his misgivings, Remy couldn't bear the thought of being something so vile as the reason you could've had to leave.
He'd woken up that morning disoriented, head buzzing with static that lingered in the air, and arms empty when he'd been so sure you were wrapped in them merely hours before. You were just there.
He told himself you went out when he couldn't find you on the fire escape, that you'd be back later, that you just forgot to leave a note, a text, a sign that you didn't up and leave.
You never came back.
He talked to Scott, to Erik, to Charles, to anyone that might've known your whereabouts. He scoured your office, searching for notes you would've left behind, scanning over the journals you wrote down the branching paths your powers presented in any effort to figure out a reason you would've had to disappear with no warning.
It happened sometimes, he reasoned. You'd get a vision late at night or early in the morning, packing up your mission bag and leaving before anyone could catch more than a "something came up." You'd text him then, something quick to let him know you were alive, that the timestream was guiding you towards something you couldn't ignore, that you'd be back, that you still loved him.
Remy didn't know how much he needed that reassurance until it was gone.
Your bag was still in its spot in the coat closet, slumped, empty, towards the back from when you'd dumped the contents and tossed it in your exhaustion after coming back from your last mission. Remy laughed then, arms open for you as your forehead slammed into his chest hard enough to push the air from his lungs in your fatigue, and carried you into bed, wanting nothing more than to have you near after being separated for a week.
The day after you disappeared was your anniversary. He spent hours staring at the ring sitting abandoned, tucked away on the top shelf of the coat closet between the decks of cards stocked up there. You joked that he was preparing for war every time he tucked a new deck into the mess that you refused to touch, and he'd turn back and tell you that he had to stay prepared for the day he had to win your heart over again.
You snorted at that one night, leaning against the wall beside him while he was busy restocking the shelf with cards you bought for him. "You'd go to war over me?" you said, an eyebrow cocked skeptically as he adjusted a stack of card boxes to stop them from falling.
"Mon amor," Remy replied, eyes meeting yours with the seriousness of a soldier before a firing squad, "I'd unravel the universe to keep you by my side. War is one of tha' easier options."
He thought a lot about that conversation while he was standing in the doorway of that closet, velvet box propped open in his palm. He'd already sent out a message to Jean, asking her to scour the cosmos for you, already considered reaching out to the Avengers to see what could be done about locating you. The only thing that stopped him was the fear of what those scans might find.
Remy LeBeau was not an honest man. He was many things: a thief, a hero, an X-Man, but before anything else, he was a man who grew up lying, cheating, and stealing. For a long time now, he's known that he didn't deserve the care and love you offered so easily to him, and still he held tightly to it, hoping beyond hope that if he could grip hard enough, the imprints of his nails would leave a permanant piece of him in your heart.
The only solace he had was knowing that wherever you were, you had the staff he'd gifted to you.
It was in the beginning of your serious relationship when you were still learning how to fight with a bo staff, and there was a part of Remy that hoped it was in an effort to get his attention (despite knowing you were above shallow schemes like that), when he found you in the courtyard of the X-Mansion.
The late afternoon sun was hanging low over the horizon, casting the lawn in a golden hue. You were in the middle of it, a training staff in your hand as you clumsily struck at a dummy you'd stolen out of the equipment shed on the other side of the yard.
"Ya ain't takin' anyone out with those hits, chere," Remy teased, extending his own staff to catch the end of yours mid-swing.
You jumped, tensing and nearly dropping the staff as you whipped around to face him, stammering.
"Gambit!" You huffed, wiping the sweat from your forehead. "What are you— I thought you had a mission tonight?"
Remy smirked, twirling his own staff slowly, casually. "Gambit? Well now, you wound me, chere. I'da' thought we're close enough for you to call me Remy by now."
He leaned in, flicking away a bead of sweat that still clung to the tip of your nose, and you laughed.
"Remy," you corrected, smile catching the light in a way that made Remy ache. "Seriously, what happened to the mission. I heard Scott saying the main team would be out tonight."
He couldn't help the grin tugging at his lips while he leaned against his staff, body tilting towards yours as you stepped away from the dummy and picked up the water bottle lying off to the side.
"Let's just say ol' Remy charmed his way out of it."
You snorted, nearly spitting your water out. "So, you either whined your way out of it, or Scott didn't need you," you filled in, a teasing glint in your eyes that made Remy buzz with excitement.
Before any further damage to his ego could be done, Remy took your arm, spinning you into his chest with a simple flourish that ended with his hand over yours on the training staff.
"Now this jus' won't do," he tsk'd, ignoring your indignant scoff as he collapsed his own staff and gave yours a testing spin in his grip.
You huffed, rolling your eyes and extracting yourself from where you were pressed against his chest. "It's a practice staff for a reason, Remy—"
"It's a piece of junk, is what it is," he argued, holding it out of your reach when you tried to take it back. "Stay here, petit. Remy'll get you a better one."
Before you could get a word in, he was off, jogging back into the mansion with your staff and leaving you to sit indignant in the grass until he returned.
When he did, it was with a small handle held up excitedly over his head. He slowed to a stop in front of you, a smirk that was struggling not to turn into a grin plastered over his face, and held the handle out to you.
"Is this not just your staff?" you questioned, eyes narrowed in suspicion as you took it gingerly from him. The grip was worn through, whatever fabric meant to cushion the middle section fraying at the edges from years of use. You nudged part of it aside where it came loose, finding Remy LeBeau scratched into the metal beneath.
Remy met your gaze over the handle, something nostalgic in his eyes as he closed your fingers around the staff.
"It's my old one," he said softly. "First one I made as an X-Man."
He could see you process that, could see the way your body seized and your resolve faltered when you registered the true weight of the object in your hands.
"Remy, I can't use this—"
"Why not?" he pushed, squeezing your fist around the handle. "You don' want to hurt Remy's feelin's, do ya chere?"
"No," you argued, trying to push it back towards him, but Remy held steady. "I'll break it or something. Seriously."
"Then I'll teach you how to fix it."
"I'll lose it."
"Then I'll show ya how to make another one."
"Remy!"
You arguments dissolved into giggles as he tugged you into him, your back to his chest, and refuted each of your points. His arms wrapped around your waist, his head over your shoulder. You could feel him smiling into your neck.
"Let me teach ya, mon cherie," he begged, words straining between a grin and muffled into skin that tingled beneath his breath.
"Will you stop asking if I say no?" You laughed, head turned toward his. He turned out from your neck, squeezing you closer as he pressed a tentative kiss to your cheek, drunk on the high that came from a blossoming relationship; affection doused in a layer of giddiness that came with learning what you would allow him to do in the name of new love.
"Non," he murmured, one of his hands slipping down your arm, hand covering yours where it was squeezed over the staff. His thumb nudged yours over a small switch hidden at the base of the first segment, and the whole thing extended from either end.
You chuckled, stepping away from him. His grip tightened on your hip for half a second before falling away. "So, I really don't have much of a choice here, do I?"
"Non." Remy chuckled with you, unhooking his own staff from where it was hiding on his belt and extending it out. He tapped the end of his against yours, and you paused to examine the four symbols encircling the end cap: the same ones running vertically down the segments of his.
Remy watched you for a moment, taking in the way the dying light glinted in your eyes and painted your skin in gold. He'd spent a lot of time in his life running, never settling down for long enough to call himself domestic. You made him want to be. Looking at you, glowing in the late afternoon sun, smiling up at him like you didn't need him to give up everything just to make you happy, Remy realized that, for the first time in his life, he didn't want to run from this.
So, how ironic, that it seems you were the one who ran from him.
Remy loathed to accuse you of anything. You were happy. He knew that. You never shied away from letting him know. Still, he was left here while you were out somewhere he didn't know, cradling a ring to his chest that should've been around your finger.
You disappeared a year ago, today. He could feel the pitying gazes from the rest of the X-Men as he sat in the kitchen of the mansion, nursing his sorrows in a glass of whiskey. He'd moved back in months ago, unable to bear the sight of your shared apartment in his solitude. You should've been there.
You were supposed to be.
But for now, all he could do was sit here, your ring dangling on a chain he kept around his throat, and wait.
All he could do was wait.