Chapter Text
Kurt rolled back and forth on the balls of his feet nervously in his pajamas.
“I don't think this is a good idea mein friend.”
“Ah, it's a fine fur ball.” Remy shuffles his cards, also in his pajamas.
Remy and Kurt have no idea why Kurt agreed to do some training when just about everyone in the mansion banned Remy from the danger room.
“Remy, Storm and Beast will kill me.”
“They can't kill you if they never know.”
It was 2 am right now and the danger room was soundproof so they should be fine.
“Everything in here is recorded, Remy!” Kurt was motioning his hand around with lots of distress as he started to spiral more.
“Homme you forgot that i'm still a thief, i'll handle it.” Remy is now walking around by himself after three weeks. Hank said his mutation may have allowed him to get back on his feet faster than expected but for some reason he still wants Remy to wait another month before training. Remy is not inclined to listen to that due to the fact he keeps accidentally blowing shit up. He got really close to hurting Storm when she was helping him learn how to walk again and he can't let that happen. Doesnt help that everytime he fucked up he would get so nervous that Death would start whispering in his ear.
“Just need a little bit of practice with my powers and then we can leave.”
“You can do that by yourself, why am I here?” Kurt bamfed right infront of Remy.
“Forge did something to the system that won’t let me in and you're the only one that won't snitch on me.”
Kurt opened his mouth to object then paused and his shoulders slumped in defeat “Alright fine, thirty minutes and that's it.”
“Merci Kurt.” Remy pulled out a deck of cards and Kurt bamfed into the control room and set up a target practice simulation.
Remy could tell immediately that this was their easiest setting, but right now he will take anything he can get. Remy was able to jump over small obstacles and throw his cards around for the first time in what felt like years.
Remy was aiming for a target when he smelled sulfur from behind. “So vhen are you going to ask out mein sister?” Hearing that Remy lost complete focus as he felt a million butterflies fly into his stomach. He tripped and caught himself in time, a card did go flying out of his hand and missed the target he was aiming for by a mile. The room shook as the card caused an explosion triple the size his cards are supposed to make. Kurt and Remy stared at the charred wall at disbelief.
“What da hell ya talkin about homme?” Remy raised his voice slightly, he didn't know if he was a little upset at Kurt for saying that or himself for reacting like that.
Kurt bamfs onto a target looking over Remy and balances on it. “Vhat the hell am I talking about? What are you talking about? You've loved her for years and she loves you!” Kurt exclaims before hooking his leg on the target and swinging over it to look at Remy while hanging upside down. For being a catholic he has a devilish smirk on his face.
Remy walks past Kurts and aims for another target. “Well she shouldn't love me alright? Too much has happened.”
“Holy shit.”
Remy spun around extremely surprised. “Did you just fucking curse, you don’t curse!”
“I curse when you Americans say stupid words, God will forgive me.” Kurt bamfs onto another high up target closer to Remy and crosses his arms.
“It ain't stupid Kurt. After everything I've done she deserves someone better. Like I said on Genosha, a scoundrel like me dont get no white picket reward.”
There's a long pause after that, Remy has a hard time looking Kurt in the eye. Kurt suddenly bamfs in front of Remy. Remy instinctively tries to take a step back but Kurt reaches out and holds onto each of his arms. It's not aggressive or forceful. “Remy after everything you've done you are a hero.”
Remy looks off to the side, still avoiding eye contact. “Kurt, I need to get back to training.”
“Remy.”
“Kurt we don't have time for this-”
“Remy no one here cares about what you did while you were in the thieves guild, no one blames you for what Death did. We care about the good things you've done, and that you are here with us. I dare say it but Remy we might not deserve you.” Kurt squeezes Remy's arms and looks at Remy hoping Remy will look at him.
“Everyone keeps saying I did good, that it wasn't my fault, and no matter how much I hear it I can't believe it Kurt. I don't know if I can't believe it because of me or if I can't believe it because of ‘him’.” Remy spits out the last part like its poison.
“Then we keep taking small steps towards improvement, and we keep telling you the same thing until you believe it, because it's the truth.”
There's a long pause.
“Also maybe I can convince you to ask out my sister.” Kurt awkwardly states and chuckles.
“Maybe furball, just may-”
Remy and Kurt jump as the sound of thunder rumbles through the danger room.
“What are you two doing?” Storm's voice booms throughout the room as she flies over them. Her eyes are glowing white and she's clearly just woken up as she's in pink pajamas and has her hair in a bonnet.
“Oh dear.”
“Oh so now you don't curse.”
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“What on God's green earth were you thinking?! What were you thinking dragging Kurt into there? We do not know nearly enough about your health or how your powers have changed. You could have hurt Kurt or hurt yourself!”
Hank was losing it at Remy and he did not know why him being in the damage room warranted an intervention in the living room so early in the morning. Hank was frantic and pacing in front of him. Storm looked disappointed and was slightly to the side of Hank and Xavier seemed to be in deep thought on the other side of Hank.k. Scott's face was stone cold and Jean was next to him with a similar look and they were in the back of the room. Logan was further away leaning up against the door frame.
“It was fine, we were fine. It aint a big deal homme.” Remy was stretched out on the couch trying to hide his stress.
“Don't tell me it's a fine young man when there is a burn mark on the wall of the danger room the size of an elephant!”
Remy gets up.“Oh so you just want Remy to sit around all day doin nothin when you all go out on missions and save da world! My Powers helped me heal fine! Storm you were th-”
“Enough!” Storm's voice cuts off Remy's yelling.
“Remy, what you did was irresponsible and dangerous. You must be cleared medically before you even think about using the danger room.” Her voice was calm but Remy could pick up the traces of disappointment.
Remy stayed quiet and fell back onto the couch. Xavier rolled up closer. “Storm is right, your mutation seemed to help your healing process but Beast must clear you before you do anything. Tomorrow you will go to the med lab and Beast can run some tests-” Xavier keeps talking but Remy cant hear anything as his ears ring.
A ringing in his ear turns into a laugh, images of Apocalypse lair flash. Blood being drawn over and over again, cuts and stitches, being strapped into different machines. He couldn't go through it again.
“Gambit are you paying attention? We need to discuss the medical tests you will go through tomorrow.” Remy was looking down and Xavier was trying to get his attention.
“I'm going to bed. I can't do dis right now.” Remy stands up and heads towards the hallway leading to his room. He doesn't make eye contact with anyone partially because everything around him is blurry.
“Hold on Gambit we are not done talking about this.” Scott grabs onto Renys arm. Remy is forced to watch a memory of Apocalypse grabbing onto the same part of his arm and dragging him somewhere he can't remember yet.
“DON’T YOU FUCKING TOUCH ME!” Remy yells and yanks his arm away from Scott, purple sparks go flying and Scott yanks his hand away. Scott hisses in pain and looks down to see a burnt hand.
Remy grabs onto his arm and his eyes switch between his own arm and Scotts hand. His face goes from angry and afraid to just afraid. “Im… I'm sorry. I thought you were, I didn't know you were….” Remy is visibly confused and concerned and everyone else is quiet. Remy looks up and sees everyone shocked, he opens his mouth to say something and nothing comes out. So, he just turns away and quickly heads back to his room.
“Shit you stupid fuckin idiot.” Remy whispers to himself while holding his head in his hands.
“He deserved that, they all do.”
Death’s influence has been less compared to when he first woke up. Some days Remy gets to go all day without hearing him. Then there are days where Death doesn't give up and Remy cant get him out of his head.
“Not now.”
Remy got to his room and immediately shut the door, he didn't want anyone even near him right now. After closing the door Remy slid down the door and sat up against it.
“They don't even trust you. They still see us as one.”
“Non they don’t, Kurt said-”
“HE WAS LYING YOU IDIOT!” Death screamed into his head sending a spike of pain that caused Remy to wince.
“They say that to you to keep you around, to keep you in their control.”
“Or maybe that's what you are tryin to do to me.”
Immediately Remy’s headache tripled in pain and Remy gritted his teeth and folded forward trying not to be too loud this late at night. Remy curled into himself and tried not to pass out from the pain as it felt like he was taking a hammer to the head over and over again.
“Aw come on man don’t throw a tantrum because ah call you out.” Remy gritted out through deep breaths trying to ease the paint. Remy realized it probably wasn't the best thing to say to stop Death.
“You can’t hold me back forever. One day you slip or you will stumble and I will kill them all!” Death was very pissed off, which was common. It had never hurt this much before and now Remy was getting cold.
Remy tried to get up to crawl into bed where he could try to warm up and wait this out but the second he got up his legs went numb and he went right back down, and he went down hard. Remy hit the floor and rolled onto his side facing away from the door trying to find a little bit of comfort, but he didn't want to use anymore energy to move. Any action would just cause Death to counter and make everything worse.
Remy stayed on the floor shivering as Death yelled and taunted. Remy knew this happened when he panicked but Remy didn't feel panicked right now. He didn't really feel anything.
Everything started to feel like a blur, he couldn’t feel his own body, of his clothes, or the floor he was on. He only felt the harsh cold. Then he felt something warm on his arm. He instantly leaned into it.
“Hey sugah what happened?”
It took Remy a second to realize who he was looking at, but once he realized he was looking at Rogue's beautiful gray eyes he responded.
“Bad night. He's pissed.”
Rogue holds him up slightly trying to make his numb body more comfortable. She looks concerned.
“Remy ah should get ya to the med lab.”
“No it’s gonna be fine chere, just need some rest.”
She gives him a soft smile. “Alright let me help ya get to bed.”
She carefully and easily picks him up and gets him over to the bed where he gently places him down and gets as many layers over him as possible. He still feels cold but it's not as bad.
She sits on the edge of the bed. “Sugah ah should really get someone.”
“Nah, I don't need to be bothering anyone. Just rest.” His head was still pounding but focusing on Rogue helped with Death's constant berating.
“You aint bothering anyone sugah. Can ah stay with ya to make sure you’ll be alright?”
“Yeah ah think I’d like that.” Remy was exhausted at this point. It was already a late night because of his attempted danger room session, then the interventions, and now this has made the exhaustion so much worse. It was hard to keep his eyes open even with his headache.
“Rogue?”
“Yeah Remy?”
“You wanna go on a date? You don’t have to if you dont wanna-”
“Yes.” Rogue responded immediately and Remy really expected her to say no.
“But we’ll talk about it in the morning because you look plum tuckered sugah.” She put her hand on his forehead and kissed it. There was no direct touch but Remy didn't care.He was just happy to be near her. Remy eyes couldn't stay open any longer after that and they closed and they closed.
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Rogue checked on Remy to make sure she was alright after waking up in a panic from a nightmare. Nightmares were common for her these days. Rogue was either having dreams about Genosha and having to watch Remy die over and over again or dreams about Death. She would watch Death kill everyone other than herself or she was forced to take out Death and in Death's last moments she was looking at Remy, not Death.
Most nights she spends a few moments or hours calming herself down then heads back to bed, but on some nights that is not enough. She needed to make sure he was alright, so her heart stopped for a moment when she came into his room and saw him lying on the floor.
Helping him into bed made her feel better and his date proposal made her ecstatic. She was terrified that after everything he could never feel the same for her. She wouldn't blame him if he didnt after the whole Magneto thing.
She stayed sitting on his bed for a few minutes double checking he was alright before leaving to go get a drink down stairs. Where she ran into her second shock of the night. The professor, Scott, Jean, Hank, Storm, and Logan were all talking in the living room and all stopped the moment she walked in.
They all silently stared at Rogue and Rogue silently stared back. “Ah’m assuming this has to do with Remy?”
Scott was dandaging his hand and responded to her. “Yeah, how did you know?”
Rogue signed and walked a little closer. “Because ah just found him on the floor of his room while Death was giving him a hard time. He was shivering like a wet cat and could barely move.”
“Perhaps we were too harsh.” Storm says while signing.
“Too harsh about what?”
“Ororo found Remy and Kurt training in the danger room even though I haven't cleared him medically and haven't tested to see how different his powers are now.” Hank says while looking through his computer that he dragged here from his lab.
“What did ya say to him after catching him? and where is Kurt?” Rogue looks around.
“We told Kurt to leave so we could talk to Remy alone. We told Remy that it was dangerous and we have to run tests before he can train him.” Jean says while she silently demands Scotts hand to check his bandage. Rogue wanted to ask about that but before she could Logan spoke up.
“He's scared of the medical shit.”
Everyone turned to Logan expecting him to day more but Logan was just trying to light a cigar. “Care to elaborate on Logan?” Xavier asks.
Logan takes a breath of the cigar and looks at it instead of the X-Men. “From what we know about turning someone into a horseman of Apocalypse from Warren's experience and Rogue's experience is that it requires a big machine and it hurts like hell. Remy’s process had to have been a lot more intensive in order to bring him back from life. Also was probably a lot worse due to the fact that Death is still kicking. Now that Remy is starting to remember more about what happened, all your talk of tests are freaking him out and he doesn't want to admit it.”
Hank looked up from his computer. “How can you be so sure?”
Logan looks at all of them. “I could smell him get nervous the second you brought it up, and let's just say I have some experience.” Logan’s claws pop out and he shows them off to the group.
“Why wouldn't he tell us?” The professor asks.
“He woke up with no memory of what happened, now he's getting too much of it. It's confusing as hell and he feels ashamed for being confused. We just watched it happen when Scott touched him.” Logan avoids eye contact after saying that.
“So what do we do? We still need to clear him medically.” Hank says looking concerned, but Rogue can tell he looks slightly guilty for how he treated the situation.
“Let him train. He won't feel safe until he can trust himself. Also he's tough, we don't need to worry about him physically unless he's dying or bleeding.”
“But Logan we still don't know-”
Logan cuts Hank off. “We don't know a lot of shit. What we do know is that Remy has a mutation that makes him want to bounce off the fucking wall. He has to be doing something or else he's gonna lose it even more than he is right now.”
Hank sighs. “I guess Logan does have a point, but I want to be there to supervise.”
Scott sighs.“I guess we don't want more of this happening.” Holding up his hand,”I could train with him in the morning. You want in Logan?” Scott asks.
“Sure Slim.”
“Mind if ah watch too?” Rogue asks Hank.
“I don't see why not I could use an extra set of eyes.”
“Actually Rogue I want your help on a mission tomorrow.” The professor speaks up.
“What's the mission about?”
“You, Storm, and Nightcrawler are going to fly to what we believe is one of Sinister’s bases and see if you can find any information on his intentions.” The professor didn't need to continue on what Sinisters intentions could be about. Sinisters notes and voice recording showing his interest in Remy have been a concern for everyone the past few weeks. Forge heavily increases security and The professor and Jean take turns using cerebro trying to find any leads. Rogue went from upset that she was going to miss Remy’s first official danger room session, to pissed off about Sinister.
“You get in, get information, then get out. We don't risk anything right now.”
“Understood. Gonna get some shut eye den. Night everyone.” Rogue turned around quickly trying to hide her anger. If they knew she was this pissed off then the Professor might take her out of the mission and she couldn't have that. She needed to know more.