I’M SO GLAD THAT I’M AN ISLAND



“There is no explanation of sexuality which reduces it to anything other than itself, for it is already something other than itself, and indeed, if we like, our whole being. Sexuality, it is said, is dramatic because we commit our whole personal life to it. But just why do we do this? Why is our body, for us, the mirror of our being, unless because it is a natural self, a current of given existence, with the result that we never know whether the forces which bear us on are its or ours—or with the result rather that they are never entirely its or ours. There is no outstripping of sexuality any more than there is any sexuality enclosed within itself. No one is saved and no one is totally lost.”


The Phenomenology of Perception, Maurice Merleau-Ponty.


*


After the first time, she avoids Logan carefully for a few days—waiting for him to take it back, to say it was all a mistake, to mumble something about not wanting her to “get all weird on me,” to grunt something about her youth, her importance to him, to mumble something like, “you, uh, mean a lot to me, kid.” To say it should never happen again.

She thinks she would prefer that; then thinks about it longer, and knows she would prefer that. While fucking Logan has its obvious—delights—now that she thinks about it again, she isn’t quite sure that adding him to the roster of casual fucks she’s accumulating is an entirely intelligent idea. If she is now remaking her entire life the way she truly wants it—against monogamy, against belonging, against false intimacy—the idea of revisiting a youthful infatuation seems slightly counterintuitive.

And whenever she is around him, the ghosts in her memories only speak louder, and all the work she has done to be able to quiet them seems for naught.

But then she thinks of what the rat had said; how he had known Logan was special because she hadn’t dared to fuck him—and she wants to prove him wrong; prove herself wrong. Knowing that with this, that youthful infatuation can be erased, replaced with the life she is living now—a life that makes her happy in a way that youth never did, or could.

And the day after the first time with Logan, she sees Gambit in the hallway, near the garage. He tells her, smirking, that on his way out of her room he saw the Wolverine, on his way in.

“Trying to prove to Gambit that he ain’t no one special?” the Cajun asks, and she wants to punch him for getting it right.

“No,” she says, crossing her arms, adjusting her green and gold scarf.

He looks at her. Then his eyes glaze over, a little, and he leans closer, looking down at her legs. “Those them special tights, minou?”

She looks at him. Then, looks next to her, at the hood of the nearest car, a Porsche Carrera GT.

And grins.


*


In any case, Logan doesn’t say any of those things, when she finally runs into him again—making sure to greet him as pleasantly as she can. Instead he only looks at her with some mixture of tortured uncertainty and poorly concealed lust; and she doesn’t mind the first, as long as she can have the second, a little less concealed.

And when she sees him in the garage while she is looking for the scarf she left there the last time with Gambit, she thinks, Either it happens, or it doesn’t.

His gaze on her back is so obvious, she thinks he has finally made a decision, but every time she shoots a glance at him, ready to acknowledge his unspoken desire, he is back to looking at the Veyron with an expression of enormous concentration. The idea of a shy Logan—a Logan unsure of how to act around her—is so foreign to her, she doesn’t do anything at first.

She considers going up to him, telling him it’s all right, telling him not to look so worried—but she thinks that would only make him feel more aware of it, more uncomfortable.

So instead, she calls out, bluntly, “Either quit staring at my ass, or do something about it. Jesus.”

He doesn’t look at her at first, still staring down at the car as if waiting for it to give him advice. Then, before she can read the look on his face, he is stalking over to her, yanking her scarf off and lifting up her skirt.

And it’s even better than the last time.


*


And afterwards, as she leaves him to fiddle with the condom, he calls after her, “So this is okay, then,” and her brain is still in an post-orgasmic haze, so she doesn’t understand what the hell he is talking about.

She turns around, and he looks supremely uncomfortable when he says, “This kind of—thing—we can—do it. Sometimes.”

And she can’t help but burst into peals of laughter, because she was right; he is shy, and unsure. So much so that he can’t even say the words—sex, fucking, sitting on my face while I eat you out, letting you suck me off, riding me backwards—and when he has finally said them, looks like he would have rather eaten his own face.

She asks if he’s a schoolgirl. And he looks angry, embarrassed at his own discomfort—but, not saying “forget it,” not brushing her off; still wanting to know the answer to his non-question.

So she repeats her previous words to him. As long as it’s good and as long as it’s casual. And it is the truth.

Then she turns around and continues walking away—then, out of the corner eye, she sees the reason she came into the garage in the first place. She is genuinely overjoyed; it had been one of her favorite scarves.

Well, mostly the reason. She had seen him go in first.


*


But despite Logan’s unarguable talents, he has a tendency to say things in bed that piss her off.

Things like, “I can’t believe I’m fucking the girl who ate all my jerky,” while she rides him.

It shocks her so much she stops all her movements to look down at him—because she is not that girl, and he is not going to think that.

“You’re not,” she says, and rolls her hips, and she is satisfied to see his eyes roll back up into their sockets.


*


She knows that he and Storm are sleeping together; she has seen him leaving her office or her room, looking slightly rumpled and antsy, the way she now knows he looks after sex.

That the knowledge doesn’t bother her, not even a little bit, is a surprising pleasure. Hell, she would like her own chance at Storm; but knowing that the woman is such an important figure in the mansion, and furthermore, a somewhat complicated mother figure in her own life—Storm’s disappointment at her taking the cure had hurt her more than she has ever admitted aloud—cancels that possibility entirely.

Gambit has even slept with Storm, a couple times; when she asks how it was, Gambit tells her, too briefly, until she asks for more detail, and the glint in his eyes gets even brighter.

That was a fun night. Well, night-to-morning. Role-play is fun, she marvels.

But she can imagine Logan and Storm; the things they have been through, the people they have lost together—the two of them had been much more affected by it all; she hadn’t really ever known Scott, and Xavier had always been gentle and courteous, but distant, with the distance of age.

And as for Jean, she had always felt equal parts admiration and discomfort in her presence. There was something about her that reminded Rogue of Logan—and to a lesser extent, herself—something adult and melancholy and guarded. And the woman had died before Rogue could become an adult, too; and be able to see her with the eyes of one.

She knows only that Logan loved her, in a way that was pained and private and theirs alone—and she since she knows so much about Logan already, without wanting to, she wants to keep it that way. When he had touched her at the Statue of Liberty, the seed of that love had already been there; and she has always tried her best to protect that seed from her own eyes.

If she can help it, she doesn’t want to intrude upon his feelings for Jean. That he should have at least one thing she hasn’t accidentally seen, one thing that can remain, as much as possible, in his heart alone, seems like one of the best silent kindnesses she can give him.


*


The day she first demonstrated her new powers to Storm, she had asked the woman if it would be possible to have some sort of position on the teaching staff of the mansion.

Storm looks both hesitant and hopeful, saying, “But you’re still pretty young—”

She points out, “Piotr is teaching European literature and politics, plus transformed-states training. Even Bobby’s learning from him.”

Storm smiles wryly. “Yes, well, Piotr is a year older than you—and, well, he’s Piotr. He could’ve taught European literature and politics ten years ago.”

“I could be like an assistant or something,” Rogue suggests. “I have all these sense memories to go with the new strength, I’m super durable, and Gambit said something about me teaching flying lessons, too, and I think that would be good; you don’t have a flying instructor on the team now that you've taken over as leader, and I think I can teach a lot, about balance, about which muscles to focus on to lessen the impact on the body, and I’ve been really training a lot, every day—and—”

She notices that in her excitement, she is rambling; and she realizes: She really wants this. To be able to do this. This is a life she wants.

Storm thinks for a moment, then says, “All right. Show me. If I think it’s a good idea—maybe I’ll give you a month or so to train a little bit more, on your own, just to prepare yourself. Then we can think about starting you out as someone’s assistant.”

But after the demonstration, Storm says—and the pride and amazement in her voice makes Rogue feel like she is standing on top of the world—“I don’t think you’ll need a month. You’ll start a week from now.”

“Really?” she asks, feeling her cheeks literally glowing. “Who am I gonna work with?”

“I think Logan would be the best choice,” Storm replies, and the glow turns into a freeze.

Storm continues, “You both specialize in hand-to-hand combat, but he has specific martial arts training, while you have your more acrobatic style, and your flying ability. You could make for a very well-rounded class. And students with corresponding abilities would be able to learn from both you.”

“Er, well,” Rogue says. “That all sounds good—really—but the thing is, er. We’re sort of—sleeping together.”

Storm doesn’t look surprised at all, which in turn doesn’t surprise her; but she still wants to explain. “Not seriously or anything, just casually—but would that be a problem?”

“Would it be a problem for you?” Storm asks.

“Not at all,” she replies openly.

“Then it’s not a problem,” Storm says. She grins. “It’s not unheard of for instructors to have sex with each other.”

Rogue laughs at that. Gambit and Storm, Storm and Logan, Jean and Scott; no, it isn’t unheard of.

“Okay,” she says, exhaling. “Thank you.”

She turns to leave, but Storm calls, “Still don’t want to tell us what happened?”

Rogue turns around again, tensing. “No,” she says quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Storm smiles, a little sadly. “No apologies necessary,” she says. “I’m just happy you’re back, honey.”

Rogue is about to leave again, but then she looks at Storm and says, “Why?”

The woman says, “Why what?”

“Why, ‘no apologies necessary?’” she asks. Her eyes lower.

She knows she cannot and does not want to tell anyone, especially Logan, but it doesn’t make her feel any less awful about having to lie to Storm, whose respect and admiration she craves.

“Why are you trusting me,” she whispers, looking at her shoes. “I could’ve done something bad, right.”

When she lifts her head, Storm is still gazing at her, her face gentle. “I’m trusting you because I trust you,” she responds.

She adds, softly, “And because from here, it looks like you’re the one something bad happened to.”

Rogue feels her chest constrict. Then the woman says, “If you’re ever ready to talk, you know where to find me,” and gestures down at Xavier’s old desk, hardly changed.

And she hadn’t said, “when you’re ready to talk.” Giving her the possibility of never having to talk about it, forever.

Rogue thinks, talking to Xavier in her head—you made a good place, here. You picked good people.


*


Logan is less supportive of her becoming an assistant instructor—but that bullshit lasts for about four seconds, because she isn’t sixteen, or weak, and so she throws him like the stubborn piece of shit he is.

His own students look shaken at the alarming sound his body makes when he crashes to the ground before them—and she even winks at one of them, a young boy who looks like he has instantly fallen in love.


*


In bed, Gambit asks her, “So what you teaching then, minou?”

“Hand-to-hand combat and flying,” she replies, knowing he will take credit for it.

And he does, grinning. “Ah, that’s a good idea, very good idea—where you get such a good idea, eh?”

She grabs his still sensitive balls with one gloved hand. “Watch it.”

He doesn’t look that fazed, leans his hips forwards into her touch. “Think that would hurt you as much as Gambit, minou.” She rolls her eyes.

“So who you teaching with,” he asks.

She looks at him, trying to gauge whether or not he is teasing her; but he truly does not seem to know, so she says, casually, “Logan.”

He goes still, then raises an eyebrow. “You think that’s a good idea?”

She shrugs. “Sure. And it makes sense for the team. We have similar abilities.”

“Mm-hmm,” he says. Then he sits up on his elbow. “You know he’s sleeping with Stormy, yeah?”

“Yeah, I know,” she replies.

“And that don’t bother you?”

She gives him a look. “No, it really doesn’t,” she says. She makes a show of narrowing her eyes suspiciously. “And shouldn’t you be more worried about whether or not I’m bothered about you sleeping with Storm?”

“No,” he says, his eyes steady on hers. “I know you ain’t.”

She smirks. “That make you sad, swamp rat? Want me to be jealous?” She massages the balls, then brings her other hand up to make a fist around his cock, and he closes his eyes as she starts to stroke him.

“Yeah,” he says, eyes closed. “But only for real.”


*


And the rat was right about Piotr and Bobby still wanting to fuck her; because one day, Piotr asks if he can fuck her in his metal form, and she is at once excited and alarmed. And it’s sort of too much—they both agree that manual and oral sex is better for them. Metal fingers are a fucking revelation.

She makes the same discovery with Bobby; while fucking his ice cock is a little less daunting than Piotr—mostly because he is not as intimidating, size-wise—they come to prefer oral sex. Apparently getting a rimjob while in ice form is a fantasy of his that no one has yet fulfilled. And how can a tongue made of ice still seem so supple?

As she is about to come, she thinks, The world is a flower full of magnificent and wonderful rainbows—and then she can’t think anymore.


*


But Logan is still occasionally saying infuriating things during sex. Fingering her in the Danger Room after class, he has his nose deep in her hair, and he mumbles, close enough to her ear that she is almost about to warn him to back off, “God, you smell good, what is that.”

And this time, she can’t stop herself from punching him in the stomach. He falls backwards like Buster Keaton.

The last thing she wants is a cheesy line, a pretense at romance, at something related to “passion,” and she tells him so. Then without feeling bad about it at all, asks if he is hurt. He is still clutching his stomach.

“Nah,” he says, and when he looks up at her, his face is practically suffused with lust. “I kinda liked it.”

The breath hitches in her throat. “We’ll need a safe word,” she says.

She isn’t really into pain games with anyone else, though Gambit has been known to enjoy a good bit of light hair-pulling and pinching—both giving and taking—but she’s definitely not opposed to new experiences. On the contrary.

He makes a move to lift himself back up, but she likes him too much where she is, so she tells him to stay there. She floats her scarf over his mouth, then lowers herself onto his face. And the sound of arousal he makes rumbles all the way up into her chest.


*


If Gambit sees the tiny scratches accidentally made on her back from just the tip of Logan’s claws during a particularly acrobatic session, he doesn’t say anything.

But a few sessions later, while his gloved hand is stroking her, he bites down sharply on the underside of her breast, and she starts coming, immediately.

He looks down at her, smirking, and says, “Interesting, minou.”


*


And teaching is just as she’d hoped it would be—despite Logan’s sometime annoying tendency to undermine her authority by asking things like, “You sure about that, kid?” or “Be careful, here.”

Luckily, all of their students are pretty young—none of them are high-school age yet, like Gambit’s students. Logan is surprisingly good with them, foul-mouthed and unrelenting, but she sees how a single grunt of praise from him makes their faces light up, makes them run and brag to their friends about how the Wolverine actually thought they were worth something, today.

She remembers how that feels. What is it about him, she wonders. To want his recognition, his admiration. Is it because he gives it out so reluctantly that any gesture of approval seems like a monumental victory?

Or is it because of him, Logan himself: the stern code of honor to which he holds himself accountable; the lonely, guarded silhouette of devotion he makes, picking up equipment in the Danger Room after class has ended; the tentative way he lets himself be surrounded by his students, still unused to having so many people around him, still unused to being anything more than utterly, totally alone.

Teaching alongside him, she can see that she isn’t the only one who has wanted to wrap arms around his hardened shape and feel it yield, a little. Every student looking at him, worshipful as future lovers.


*


She wonders if Logan and Jean were ever able to do anything with each other. She is inclined to think not; for all the woman’s obvious attraction to Logan, she always seemed incredibly faithful, the wistful fidelity of a complicated woman, trying her best to be simple.

The kind of woman who would walk silently out of the jet, while they were all frantically panicking, and lift that jet above water with one hand—while holding back the very instant of her own death, with the other.

And she remembers the professor turning to them all, whispering Jean’s last words to them in his own mouth, his entire face breaking.

Seeing Logan’s panic, Scott’s panic—then his thin, cracked, tightly wound voice as he held a hysterical Scott and said, as if the words were foreign words, as if saying them would teach him what they meant, “She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.”

She hadn’t been able to do anything for him then, and she hadn’t tried. He keeps that loss close, his own private shrine to mourn around; she hopes she never has to really touch him again, because she doesn’t want to know firsthand what it feels like. Even though she is a little older, she doesn’t harbor any illusions about the idea that her newfound maturity might now give her insight into his pain. What age has given her is the realization that every death is a different world; every loss a loss like never before.

We don’t share pain, she thinks. We might share something else—kindness, gentleness. But not the original pain. That is his. She hopes she never takes it from him.


*


When she and Logan are thinking up safe words, she makes the mistake of saying too many Japanese or Japan-related words, without even thinking about it. Our minds are strange and treacherous, she thinks. Thinking then, of the things she has already taken from him.

Only when she suggests samurai, after already having said sushi and karaoke, does she realize that her mind might be acting on its own. And she doesn’t like that, she doesn’t like that at all.

Remembering, cursing herself. Harada Kenichiro, code name Silver Samurai.

And fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Logan is already looking at her suspiciously after she has come up with that clumsy lie about seeing Zatoichi with Jubilee. But unfortunately, now Logan seems to agree on samurai, and if she decides to change it, it will look even more suspicious.

So she decides to divert the attention from her own discomfort, and suggests they try it out. She picks him up, flies away from the bed, and drops him onto his naked ass. The sound he always makes when he drops on the ground is becoming incredibly satisfying.


*


But now, not only does Logan say aggravating things during sex, he sometimes says them afterwards, too. Another time, as she is putting on her clothes, he asks her again about how she got the powers.

She doesn’t look at him, zipping up her jeans. “Nope.” She looks at Logan’s alarm clock; she is supposed to meet Gambit soon, she still needs to shower.

“Not even if I ask nicely?” he asks, and he sounds as if he is trying his best to sound kind, understanding, laid-back—and it sounds fucking creepy, frankly. She’d rather he ask her naturally, which is to say, meanly—though she knows she wouldn’t tell him then, either.

And she tells him just that, pointing to the delicious sex injury he has left on her back.

Behind her, she can hear him, choke out, “You wanna go another round?” And she thinks, someone does like pain games, hm.

But she really does need to take a shower; even she can smell Logan all over her, and throughout all her trysts, she has always been careful to shower in between. She doesn’t really care about the mix of smells herself, but she knows Logan’s nose well enough to know that even after a shower, he might smell the rat, or Piotr, or Bobby. And while she doesn’t pretend to be tender, she is at least decent.

She doesn’t think Gambit would love it, either, the smell of cigar and some other guy’s bitter cum; even if he is only a little in love with her. She rolls her eyes inwardly, at that. Ridiculous.

So she apologizes to Logan, zips up her left boot, and leaves without looking back at him.


*


“You’ve been surprisingly well-behaved,” she tells Gambit, lounging in his bed.

He blinks. “How so, minou?”

She says, “I kinda thought you and Logan would be like cats and dogs. But I haven’t even seen you guys talk, let alone argue. Do you guys even ever see each other?”

“I see him,” he says, playing with her nipple with gloved fingers. “He come to the poker night.”

She freezes. “What poker night?”

He pinches her nipple lightly. “Men’s poker night. Bobby, Piotr, Kurt, Warren, Logan, and Gambit. We play poker every week.”

“When?” she asks.

“It changes,” he says. “Besides, Gambit wouldn’t tell you nothin’, anyway.”

“Why not?” she asks.

“Boys’ rule,” he replies.

Then he looks at her. “And because if you know Gambit’s going to poker night, you won’t fuck me right before,” he says. “And this old thief wouldn’t like that so much.”

“Pervert,” she says, hitting his face lightly. He smiles, but doesn’t say anything else.

“I didn’t know you guys saw each other regularly,” she muses. “So you get along, then. Sort of.”

“Nope,” Gambit says. “I don’t like him, he don’t like me.”

She glances at him. “Any other reason besides the obvious one?”

He pinches her nipple again, harder so that she yelps. “Because of how he plays poker.”

She doesn’t know anything about poker. “How?”

He brings the sheet over the nipple, so that he can bite it, lightly; then a little harder. “Too conservative. Folds if he don’t got nothing. Don’t like to bluff. Scared he’s gonna lose.”

“Isn’t poker all about luck, anyway?” she points out.

“No,” he says. “It’s about what you do with the luck. He don’t do nothing with his bad luck, don’t make nothing of it. Not imaginative enough.”

“He’s plenty imaginative in bed,” she teases.

“Gambit just take your word for it, minou,” he mumbles, then brings his other hand up to her other breast, and they aren’t talking anymore.


*


One evening, Gambit comes back into her room, and while he is undressing, asks, “So you got hyper-immunity, or something?”

She looks at him. “Huh?”

He unzips his pants, pulls them off. “Piotr and I was talking a while ago. He was trying to explain your mutation to me, and why the cure don’t work on powers like yours.”

“Oh,” she says. She hasn’t thought about the failed cure in a little while. “Well—I guess. I don’t know. He could probably explain it to me, too.”

“So you explain it your way,” Gambit says, kicking off his socks, and leaning back in her bed in just his boxer-briefs. “How it work.”

“I was going to do something more fun than a science lesson,” she says in a dirty voice.

“This first,” he says. He covers his crotch. “Interdit,” he says. “Forbidden. For now.”

“I think that’ll hurt you as much as me, chèr,” she says, mockingly. He snorts, but doesn’t budge on the subject.

“How it works,” she says. “I don’t know. It first kicked in when I was kissing a boy—”

“How old,” he interrupts.

“Sixteen,” she replies.

“First kiss at sixteen,” he muses to himself.

She glares at him. “We didn’t all fuck our math teacher in middle school, swamp rat.”

“Didn’t have no math teacher,” he replies. “No middle school, neither. Keep going.”

“Well—I was kissing him, and it just started—sucking.”

“That don’t sound too bad,” he says. “Do you want to hear this or not?” she demands.

He lifts a hand for her to continue; and when he brings his hand away from his crotch, she sees that he is hard.

He sees her looking at it, smiles, says, “Don’t you worry about this, minou. Gambit’s had worse. Keep going.”

She rolls her eyes. “So it just started sucking, and it felt weird, so I pulled away—but he was already passed out, unconscious. I started freaking out, my parents came in, I don’t even remember how it all happened—but suddenly he was in my head, and I could hear all his most recent thoughts, his memories. Like, I knew that he was horny, that he had been drinking milk that morning, it felt like I could taste milk, even though I’m lactose intolerant.”

Gambit is gazing at her thoughtfully. “Hm,” he says.

“And, well, the next person I touched was Logan—”

“The Wolverine?” he asks, sitting up. “You touched him? When?”

She sighs. She doesn’t really want to tell this story; she hasn’t ever told it, and now it feels so far away, she feels as though she is talking about a younger cousin of hers, or a character in a story she read a few years ago.

“We came to the mansion together,” she says. “It was about a month after I ran away from home. I’d been moving around in Canada. I saw him in a cage fight bar; saw that he was a mutant, too. I thought he’d be—understanding, or something.”

The memory of it stings her, so she starts talking faster. “I snuck into his camper. That’s it. Then we were attacked, and when I woke up, I was in the mansion, and so was he. Storm and Scott—” Then she realizes Gambit does not know Scott, but she’s already said it, so she continues, “—came to save us.”

“Lots of holes in that story, minou,” he says. “But okay. Gambit still don’t know how you touched him.”

“He was having a nightmare,” she begins. “We were in adjacent rooms, so I could hear him. I went over and tried to wake him up, but when he woke up, he accidentally put his claws out, and they stabbed me in the chest.”

Now Gambit is sitting straight up in bed, staring at her. His eyes go, instinctively, to her chest.

“No scar,” she says, pulling her shirt down to show him, though he should already know. “I touched him, and took his healing factor.” She swallows, closes her eyes for a minute, then opens them again. “It almost killed him.”

“And so it closed up,” he says. “It closed up,” she confirms.

“Good,” he says. “And afterwards, you got his memories and things like that, too?”

Her face darkens before she can reign herself in, and it’s too late, he’s already noticed. But he is silent, waiting for her to say it. “Yeah,” she says. “But that time it was still okay.”

“There was another time?” he asks, and his voice is just the slightest bit too sharp.

God, why is she telling this fucking story.

“Yeah. Later, Magneto touched me—” And she sees Gambit’s fist close around her sheet. She goes on, “He wanted me to power some device, so I needed to absorb his powers for that; I don’t know, it was complicated. Anyway, he touched me for a really long time. I still have a lot of his memories and thoughts. None of his powers, anymore, though. But a lot of his memories and thoughts. It’s pretty much as if they were all my own.”

“And then,” he says.

“Well, then, he made me power the device, and after that, I think I was pretty much dead,” she says, and Gambit grips the sheet again, then lets go of it quickly, looking down at his own hand in surprise. She thinks she sees a slight singe mark on the sheet.

“But then Logan touched me—you have to understand, other people told me the story, I don’t know how it happened, I was already gone—and, well, I guess at some point, I wasn’t dead anymore. I just woke up all of a sudden, and he was touching me, and he was all bloody and wounded, and I panicked and pushed him away, and he just passed out.”

He watches her. “And then,” he says, quietly.

"That's it," she says.

He shakes his head, not having it. "No. And then. What you absorbed."

She lowers her eyes. “Well,” she begins, then her own fists tighten. “Well. It was different from Erik. I mean, Magneto.”

She exhales heavily. “With Logan—I don’t know how to describe it, exactly. But it was like, because he sort of brought me back from the dead, the first life that was in me was his, you know? Sort of like a blood transfusion—but instead of that, a life transfusion.” She scratches her head. “Does that make sense? Like there was nothing in me, then it was like, he was there first, and then his life in me woke the rest of me up.”

Gambit doesn’t say anything then.

But she is not looking at him, but down at her feet, encased in the thin black nylon of her special tights. Already prepared for sex, feeling so far away from it.

“His memories in my head are different,” she says softly. “They never went away, after that. And I got a lot of them. All mixed up in there. Before I used to go around remembering things that never happened to me. It took me a long time to control it, to make a dividing line between all of his stuff and all of my stuff.

“It’s different even from the woman I—you know,” she says, gesturing with her hand. “The woman I killed. Her memories aren’t even as strong as his.”

He tilts his head at that. “Strange, no?”

She hesitates. “No,” she says. “I think it might be stronger with him because Logan himself doesn’t have his own memory.” He looks at her.

“He lost his memory about eighteen years ago,” she explains. “He doesn’t remember anything before that.”

Gambit stops, and stares at her. Then his face changes. “But you do,” he murmurs.

She nods. “Yeah,” she says, looking down at her gloved hands. “It’s like I stole it or something. Or like, it came out stronger in me because it had been dying to come out in him, and just couldn’t, somehow. Like it finally had a place to unfold, or something.

“Like—you know how some people have phantom limbs, when they lose a limb? And it feels just as strong and real as your old arm? Well, it was like—I had his phantom limb, or something—or I had his real arm, while he had the phantom—or—”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know what I’m talking about, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, minou,” he says. He is resting his elbows on his naked knees, now, leaning forward. “Thank you. For this story.”

“I don’t even remember your original question,” she says sheepishly.

“You already answered it,” he says simply. Then he leans back, placing his hands back on the bed. “Now Gambit know how it work.”

She smirks at him. “You scared?”

“A little,” he says, and she is surprised at his candor.

“For you, too,” he says. “For you to have Gambit in your head.” His eyes are just south of meeting her own. “Wouldn’t wish that on you, minou.”

“I can control some parts of it,” she tells him. “I mean, I haven’t practiced that much, but—if I concentrate, I can try to take just powers, instead of memories. Of course, that only goes for mutants; I never tried it on a human before. And if it’s starting, I can usually stay present enough to push the other person away, if it was an accident. Faster than I used to be able to. It doesn’t make me dizzy, anymore. I can stay in control of the situation. Usually.”

Then her face crumbles. “Though—that time—with the woman—I was a little drunk and drugged, too, so—it didn’t—I couldn’t—”

And the nausea is coming back, the ground is sweeping up to cover her head—but he barks, “Chère. You did exactly the right thing. Yeah? You got nothin’ to feel guilty for.”

“I know,” she says, rubbing at her eyes, trying to breathe deeply. “I know.”

“Know it better,” he says, staring at her.

She can’t tear herself from his gaze for a moment. “Okay,” she mumbles.

Gambit looks to the side of her, thinking. “Now Gambit see,” he reflects.

“See what?” she asks.

He seems to think about something for a minute. Then, he opens his mouth. “Why you do what you do,” he says. “Why you are how you are.”

“And how is that,” she retorts sharply, crossing her arms.

“Strong,” he says. “Strong.” And her face softens with pleasure.

Then he covers his eyes with his hands. “Okay,” he says. “Gambit gonna tell you something, minou, since you told me so much.” She looks at him, curiously.

“I can charm people,” he says, his voice solemn.

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I know you think you’re so gr—”

“No,” he says harshly. “It’s a hypnotic power. I can use it to tell people what to do.”

Her mouth drops. “Wait, what? What the hell? So have you used it on me?” Then she snorts. “Is that how you got me into bed with you? I knew you were a rat.”

“No,” he says. “Gambit never used it on you. And now I can never can.”

She looks at him in question. He explains, “It only works on people who don’t know about it. Nobody else in the mansion know this before. Now you the first.”

She stares at him. He stares back, with the eyes that have always aroused her. Now they do something else, she isn’t sure what.

“So now you know,” he says. “It won’t work on you no more.”

Then he smiles. “So if I want something from you, Gambit gonna have to ask you nicely.” He snickers. “Or steal it from you.”

She approaches him. “Oh, yeah?” she asks roughly, climbing onto the bed, onto his lap. “So tell me something you want.”

Gambit laughs, leans forwards to slide his arms up her back. “Too many to name them all, minou. I’d rather just do them.”

He smirks. “Anyway, everything Gambit want to do right now, you want to do, too.”

“Cocky Cajun,” she mutters, and slides down to pull off his boxers.


*


And then, then, then—they receive news that Hank’s home in D.C. has been burned down.

And they are all shaken, especially Storm—in fact, Rogue notices that Storm is shaken most of all, in a way that she has never seen before, as if with this news, it is the first time she has ever heard of death—even though she has just recently lost three of her closest friends. But this news about Hank is different, for Storm—and Rogue thinks she can put a finger on why, but isn’t entirely sure.

Storm tells them that some of the staff will occasionally be asked to work as bodyguards for Hank, to supplement his current security staff during this precarious time. Everyone agrees immediately, though later, in bed, Gambit tells her, “Why Gambit gotta be a bodyguard for some government jerk? I don’t trust none of these politicians.”

“Because he’s a friend,” Rogue snaps at him. “Because he would do it for you and me.”

He looks at her. “Well, if he would do it for you, minou,” he says, all sparkling charm all of a sudden, crawling over her.

“Pervert,” she says, looking up at him.

“You love it,” he says. “I don’t love anything,” she says, then cries out in pain and lust when he bites down hard on her breast through her scarf.


*


Gambit comes into her room and says, his face dark, “Got assigned on the first mission.”

“Ha!” she crows. “Serves you right, complaining about it! You better protect Hank good, swamp rat.” She smiles. “Really—he’s the face of mutants everywhere. And super nice. And he was always super sweet to me.”

“He sound like a treat,” Gambit says dryly.

“Who are you going with?” she asks. And he looks at her, pointedly. “Guess,” he says.

She stares at him, then starts laughing. “No, really? That’s pretty funny. Storm has a good sense of humor.”

“Hilarious,” he mutters, and starts undoing her top.

As he does, she looks up into his eyes. “What, you bothered?” She takes his gloved hand with her bare one. “The mission is about protecting Hank. Don’t fight with him, okay?”

He slips her top off, undoes her bra with a snap. “Gambit don’t fight for a girl,” he says. “I’ll kill for a girl; but not fighting. That’s kids’ play. He wants to fight me, I kill him, that’s it.”

“No one’s gonna be doing any killing, assassin,” she barks. “Thief,” he barks back.

“Coulda fooled me,” she says. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Don’t you worry, minou,” he says. “This old thief knows better than to fight over you. If he tries, he don’t know nothing about you.”

“He won’t try,” she says, as he pulls her sweatpants and underwear off, but he doesn’t respond and then, again, there is no more talking.


*


Still—she thinks of Hank, of the burning house. Of Storm’s stricken and ashen face; when she must have been thinking about the possibility of a Hank-less world.

And the day of the mission, she goes to Logan’s room and fucks him without speaking, without taking off any of her clothes, just pulling up her skirt and sliding on top of him, as if she is afraid that words will jinx something, break something—eyes closed, hearing the noises of pleasure he makes.

She only opens them once, to smack him, when he tries to tickle her into speaking, and fails. And before she leaves, she only says, “Have a safe trip,” trying not to think the inevitable thought: what if these are the last, what if these are the last, what if these are the last words. Thinking, Logan, Logan, Logan, Logan.

Afterwards, she goes to her room, and Gambit is waiting for her there, leaning outside her door, already in his body armor, his trench coat draped over his arm.

She looks at him, surprised. “I was going to shower and come to you,” she says. “I know,” he says, after a short pause.

She lets him into the room. “Just one minute,” she says, her voice a little shaky from having been silent nearly all day. She hurries into the bathroom, quickly strips off her clothes, and hops into the shower.

Behind her, she can hear the shower curtain slide open. He is there, still in his armor but without the shin guards and kneepads; still wearing gloves and socks. “Wait, watch out,” she says, trying to keep the water out of her mouth as she speaks. “I’m naked, and you—”

“All covered,” he says, and begins to touch her. And he does only that, touch her, and the water is in her eyes so she cannot see anymore, cannot see the look on his face or in his eyes. And then he pulls a silk square kerchief out from under his collar—and she recognizes it as the one he used, that first time, after she had come back to the mansion—and kisses her.

Then he pulls back and says, “Let’s go to the room.”

And they fuck on her bed, drenching it with water. This time, he is the wordless one, closing his eyes, which he almost never does.

Afterwards, he looks at the alarm clock on her nightstand, curses, and says he will be late, he will only have time to run back to his room and change into a spare body armor.

“Okay,” she says. “Have a safe trip.”

He brings the kerchief back up, kisses her on the cheek, then bites the flesh there, lightly. “Later, minou.”

And when he is gone, she lies down on the puddle in her bed, and tries not to think about why he would come to her room, already in his armor, ready to leave, when he claimed to have known she was going to come to his room. And was she going to go to his room, she wonders.

She closes her eyes, touches herself, feeling water chill her back. Thinking, thinking, of nothing, of no one.


*


While they are away, she has another rendezvous with Piotr. “What’s great about sucking your cock,” she says, while she is doing it, “is that there’s no messy clean-up afterwards.” Piotr laughs hard at that.

Then she meets Bobby in his room, and he gives her a sharp, cold, stinging orgasm with his ice tongue, making her come with a surprised shout. Afterwards, she tells him what she told Piotr, since the same goes for him, too.

Jokingly, she suggests to Bobby that the three of them do something together—and she sees something in Bobby’s eyes shift and darken with desire, and then something more than desire, and she thinks, Ah, ah.

She doesn’t know if Piotr feels the same way about Bobby, but she wonders if she shouldn’t do something, try to find some way to get them together—but then she stops herself. If she doesn’t want to be match-made; she shouldn’t do it for anyone else, either.

If they figure it out, they figure it out, she decides. It’s up to them.


*


When she hears from Storm that they have all arrived home safely, she feels as though she has lost three pounds in held breath alone.

Then realizes, she has called the mansion “home,” and the three pounds are gained back in her sharp intake of breath.


*


When she is fucking Logan, and she asks how the mission went, he says, “Boring. Better right here.”

When she is fucking Gambit, and she asks how the mission went, “Boring. Gambit missed you, minou.”


*


Then, when she is assigned on a mission with Logan and Warren, she has to stop herself from cursing out loud in Storm’s office. They are the two people she least wants to accompany on a mission; Logan, for being Logan, and Warren for being something of a passive-aggressive douche bag since the first and last time they fucked, after which she began evading all of his subsequent advances.

Hank’s a friend, asshole, she reminds herself, using the same arguments she used with Gambit. He would do it for you.

Only Logan looks more uncomfortable than she does; but when Storm says the mission is a gala taking place on a rooftop, necessitating mutants with flying abilities, just in case, the reluctant looks slide from their faces.

She is a little disappointed that the mission is something as tame as a ball, she had been hoping for something a little more action-filled—she wonders if Storm isn’t overreacting, just a tiny bit. But then, anything can happen anywhere, and she remembers the look on Storm’s face, and doesn’t ever want to feel it on her own, so she doesn’t complain.

Sure enough, the ball is a colossal bore (colossal! Ha! She thinks of Piotr, smiles; then thinks of Bobby and Piotr, and smiles a little more wistfully), not at all helped by Logan’s almost total lack of humor the entire night—either he is taking the mission incredibly seriously, or he’s annoyed about something. He barely speaks to her or Warren, just standing near Hank and scowling at cater-waiters as they come by with silver plates of shrimp rolls and Spanish tapas.

Then one young man, tall and damned cute, if blond—she finds she prefers dark-haired men, personally—comes up to her and says, “Oh, are you Rogue?”

And how the hell he would know her name. She doesn’t know. So she asks, suspiciously, “Who’s asking?”

He says his name is Joshua, explains that he was Hank’s assistant during his time in the Cabinet, which she realizes is the President’s Cabinet. He says Hank has told him about her, and she wonders what Hank could possibly have told him—then he mentions Erik, saying, “I heard you had a close encounter with Magneto.”

Ah. Yes; that must not have gone under the radar of the United States government. The girl who nearly got killed by Magneto while he was trying to kill as many world leaders as possible.

She isn’t her anymore, she thinks to herself, and almost wants to tell him that he’s got the wrong girl.

Then she thinks of someone else who had a close encounter with Magneto; someone else who was there, during that close encounter with Magneto. She can’t help but look over at Logan, who is already looking at her, too. But before she can look away, she is already telling the young man, “Pretty close.”

Logan and Hank move to the other side of the room; she looks over at them. Logan is glaring at yet another cater-waiter who has the audacity to offer him a flute of champagne. Hank sees her looking, and gestures for her to continue talking to Joshua, making a subtle thumbs-up gesture with his hand, then smiling apologetically.

This entire time, he has seemed incredibly embarrassed by the entire situation; having to be protected by the three of them, not the most inconspicuous group—Warren with his special suit, with its strategic slashes, ready to let his wings fly, Logan with the murderous look on his face, her in her gloves and high-necked jumpsuit.

She thinks Hank must also be of the opinion that Storm is overreacting; but whenever someone mentions her, his eyes manage to both soften and harden at the same time. And Rogue thinks of all the things she does not know, and will not understand. Things that are pained and private and theirs.

The young man tells her something funny that she cannot quite remember only twenty seconds later, but he is young, and cute, and obviously interested in her, and a little flirting never hurt anybody.

But then he suggests, rather brazenly, that they meet up at his room later. She looks at him, laughs, and shakes her head regretfully. “I can’t,” she says, pointing at her skin. “My mutation is my skin; I absorb people through their skin. No touching.”

He looks at her. “Can you touch people in other states?”

She blinks. “I—what, like metal and ice? Yeah, usually.”

He lifts up his hand, and it turns to metallic gold in front of her eyes, which must have widened like saucers, because he starts to smile. And then she, too, starts to grin, feeling like a giddy idiot.

With the metallic hand, he pulls out his room key and says, “Room 407. I’ll be there after the party; come by after you’re off the job.”

“I’m in 435,” she says. “Same floor.”

“How convenient,” Joshua says, and she has never, ever, ever thought of sex as “convenient” before—casual, amazing, awful; yes, but never convenient—and the joyful thrill she feels warms her entire body.


*


And when she tiptoes out into the hall, when Warren is asleep, she walks down the corridor to see his head poking out of one room. “Rogue, over here,” he says in a stage-whisper. She giggles and hurries over, and by the time she reaches his door, he is fully golden, and his kisses are cool, then warm.

When she gets back, she thinks it would be better to take a shower now, rather than in the morning, so she does so. Warren is turned over on his side, she cannot see his face. And in the bathroom, she sees two hickeys on her neck, and she thinks, Like a high-schooler, huh, but the thought gives her so much youthful, girlish pleasure that in the shower she cannot stop laughing, until she realizes she is crying, too.


*


On the jet, Warren is once again being pissy as a baby, and even Logan notices, asking him if he is all right. She keeps the scarf wound tightly around her neck; although she knows she doesn’t care who knows what she does, it doesn’t mean she has to telegraph it around.


*

She is just outside one of the side entrances to the cafeteria, and she can already hear Warren talking—he is just in front of her, she can hear every word.

“She’ll put out for anyone who comes along, I swear—”

She hears Bobby weakly trying to shut him up, failing. Thank you, Bobby, she thinks wryly.

“I’m serious, man; she spent the whole night flirting with this guy when we were all supposed to be guarding Dr. McCoy. And then, at night, when we were still supposed to be on watch, she snuck out in the middle of the night and disappeared. And believe me, she came back looking well-fucked; she even had to take a shower afterwards—”

From where she is standing, though, she has a good vantage point of the entire cafeteria; and to her left, she can see a familiar trench-coated figure stand from his seat, several tables behind and to the left of Warren.

Gambit starts to move, and she thinks, That’s not good.

“Come on, you guys know it’s true—Jubilee, you know it’s true—she’s the mansion slut, that’s old news—I bet you that’s how she got those crazy powers, too—probably accidentally sucked them out of some guy she was fucking—”

Then, several tables in front of Warren, and to the right, by the food stations, she sees Logan, standing, holding a sandwich. Then he drops the sandwich and starts walking towards the young man, too, and she can see his fist dropping to his side, in the customary position he makes before drawing the claws.

And she can see Gambit’s entire back now, and one of his hands is in the pocket that holds his cards.

And she thinks, That’s definitely not good, and she flies forward, fast, and throws Warren across the room, more toward Logan’s direction—the further the rat’s projectiles have to aim, the better—and into the food stations. The man isn’t that light, but he isn’t that heavy, either, but the reason she is throwing him isn’t just to defend herself—but to protect him from whatever these two morons she’s inexplicably fucking were about to do.

While he is flying, she pulls off her scarf so that the hickeys can be seen, and lets it dangle from her hands. She thinks, To hell with it, then, I’ll telegraph everything around. And the air on her skin feels freeing.

She calls out, “Still bitter that not even this slut will touch your microscopic dick more than once, Worthington?”

Behind her, she can hear Gambit’s deep, gravelly laugh, which she knows well—but then it starts to turn into something more like a roar, whooping and uncontrolled and celebratory. She hasn’t ever heard him laugh like that.

And in front of her, she can see Logan, his hand relaxing, staring at her—then staring at the rat while he laughs.

Then Gambit stops laughing, and Logan is still looking at him, but his hand isn’t relaxed anymore.

“As you were, children,” Rogue announces to the rest of the cafeteria, and walks out.

Trying to ignore, in her mind, the sound of Gambit’s laughter; and the look of Logan’s hand tensing, then relaxing, then tensing again.