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Who: Rogue & Gambit
When: Approx. week 3 of the Blue Team in “Antarctica”, late night
Where: Kitchen
What: Impromptu Gold Team Leader Meeting
Warnings: Very stupid arguments; stupider feelings
It’s not that Gambit has been avoiding Rogue since the kissing incident, because they work together and they practically live together and they are literally married to one another, but it’s been a minute since they’ve had a real conversation alone. For a second when he runs into her in an otherwise vacant kitchen in the middle of the night, it looks like he’s thinking about just turning around and leaving. But her voice saying knew you couldn’t handle it is also playing on loop in his mind, so he stands his ground and crosses to the fridge.
After he opens it, he realizes he had no concrete plan for feeding himself outside of maybe snagging a beer, which feels too pathetic to do right in front of her, so he just stares at the contents of the fridge in silence as he tries to decide what to do or say.
“Who you think died first?” he asks eventually, a question that has clearly been weighing on him since Blue Team missed their first check-in.
Rogue doesn’t need to stay, with her barely-eaten sleeve of saltines she’s picking away at for a truly poor excuse at dinner. She stays anyway, perched on the counter. Feels important to keep her ground. None of this is the way they fight normally. That’s a matter of a few quiet, seething days, a blowout, then an understanding. This isn’t quite that anger. It’s different. Feels worse.
Her shoulders fall in some relief when he actually opens his mouth and says something, foolish and depressing as it may be. “Ain’t dead. They’re all too stubborn to go that way.” But she pauses, considers, extends the crackers and an awful joke, “But if they was, probably Kitty. Too skinny for all that cold.”
When things aren’t weird between them, Gambit enjoys recreationally arguing with Rogue about things that don’t matter. In fact, it’s one of his favored pastimes. For a moment it seems like he’s going to disagree with her for the hell of it, but then after he thinks about it for a second the tension in his shoulders drops.
“Yeah, Kitty,” he agrees as he considers her over the fridge door. He grabs a beer anyway, after all his deliberation, and then pries the cap off on his teeth to avoid having to get to the drawer she’s sitting over for the bottle opener. “It’d have to be. Rest of them couldn’t fix the Blackbird without her and they’d all be back by now if they could get airborne.”
Rogue frowns, because he shouldn’t have agreed that easy. He never does. She’s pretty convinced that’s what makes them a good team; the constant pushback against what each other is thinking. So she pokes back, arguing against him anyway.
“Nah, Scott would have to go too. That boy knows every bolt and wire on that plane. And without him, they’re all goners anyway.” She actually doesn’t love this idea once it’s exited her mouth, and frowns. Maybe she’s worried about Remy’s midnight beer too, but it suddenly doesn’t seem her place to say much about that. So she siphons her concern into something more obvious. She tries for a smile but it doesn’t quite make it. “Goodness’ sake, sugar. You break all your teeth out, I’m gonna have to do all the talking to the team. You want that?”
“My teeth are fine.” He bares them at her momentarily just to demonstrate that none are missing, and then flicks the bottle cap into the trash at the far side of the room, where it explodes with a tepid pop.
She rolls her eyes and decides she probably can’t get through this conversation sober. Rogue hops off her counter, grabs a beer of her own and pointedly pops it open using the countertop and the heel of her hand, which is another way a person can fulfill that task.
“So what are we gonna do?” She asks, abrupt, leaning back against the same counter she had been seated on before.
He moves out of her way by reflex, and keeps the distance as she heads back to her spot at the counter. He looks her over once, not quite wary, and notes with a pang of emotion he doesn’t bother to put a name to that she is wearing a shirt he traditionally thinks of as belonging to him. They share all their clothes, technically, so he can’t really claim that she’s stolen it from him. He’s not even sure it occurred to her when she put it on. So he doesn’t say anything, and instead just blows out a dramatic sigh through his lips as he pretends to consider the question.
“Well we gotta go look for them, don’t we?” He’s fairly certain that’s what the other X-Men would do for them, if they were stranded in Antarctica.
The cold from that distance shouldn’t sting as much as it does, but Rogue feels it in her bones. She throws a protective arm across herself, drawing his shirt around her more tightly. She takes a single thoughtful sip of her beer.
“We do. So I’ll fly off with some of the crew in the morning, you stay here.”
He stands up a little straighter at this proposal, setting his beer bottle down on the table next to him. “Hell no.”
“You sure?”
She puts hers down too, crosses both arms over her chest and tries her best to look directly at him. “Cuz it’s an awful long trip to the South Pole in a mighty little plane for two leaders who can’t even live in the same two bedrooms.” This is an awful way to tell him that she misses him, and she’s sorry, but words have always come up easiest when they’re fighting ones.
“That’s different,” he retorts after trying and failing to summon a better argument for a moment. He doesn’t think they’ve been as far apart as New York and Antarctica since the day they met, which is to say nothing of the fact that the last team of X-Men who went to investigate the South Pole are currently MIA.
“How d’you figure?” She goads, because at least arguing with him feels better than pretending she doesn’t see him in the halls.
“Can’t just run off and leave me in charge of everything,” he gripes, taking a long swig of the beer. Part of him wants to suggest that he go looking for Blue Team and she stay behind instead, because he knows she wouldn’t like it either, but it’d be a bluff. He doesn’t really like that idea any more than the first one.
Rogue lets out a soft sigh. She knows he’s right. Takes all the wind out of her sails when he is. She allows herself to nod. “That’s the trouble,” she says, taking an equal swig to steel herself, “Don’t actually think I can do any of this without you.”
“Never have to,” he says automatically, and then realizes belatedly it’s hypocritical of him when he’s been avoiding her for the last month. He coughs, self-conscious, and becomes very focused on the label of his beer. “We can always leave Paige with the place.”
The quickness of the answer gives her strange comfort. Devil-tongued though he may be, he didn’t think about that. Means part of it’s still true. There’s some hope there. “You, neither.” She answers, in case he was wondering. Then she turns back towards the counter to eat another cracker.
“Could tell her it’s her own branch of the team, sweeten the pot. Rose Gold team. Fool’s Gold.” She chances, casual, over her shoulder.
“She’s no fool,” he replies, although he does also chuckle at the joke. It’s a good enough one, even if the idea of leaving the juniormost members of the X-Men on their own isn’t funny in its own right. He likes to think he and Rogue are too smart to fall victim to whatever stupid thing happened to Blue Team, but part of the risk of investigating is not coming back. He doesn’t want to think about that right now, though, even if they will be going together.
“You want real food?” he offers.
“Please. Hero.” She sits at a kitchen chair to give him space to work in, wholly abandoning the cracker she’d been going for. Feeding herself proper isn’t something she’s great at without him. She lets it all lapse into silence for a few moments, and although they haven’t come near addressing their underlying issues, it feels more homey. Like things should be.
Enough, even, that she has the courage enough to turn her face up to him, resting her chin on her gloved hand. “Remy. Will you come home tonight? Know a few cats who’d be awful peeved if they didn’t get some quality time before we head to Antarctica.”
He’s just swinging the fridge door shut again when she asks, and he looks genuinely surprised when he glances over at her. The tentative conversation between them and the peace offering of eggs and bacon are one thing. Going back to normal is another ask altogether, and one he still isn’t entirely sure he’s good for. But he’s never been particularly skilled at telling her no, and even as he turns the burner on the stove up he already knows what his answer will be.
“Might as well,” he says, because he can’t admit how much he really wants to aloud. “Get a good night’s sleep and everything.”
If she could touch him now, Rogue thinks, she’d stand and kiss him. Nothing wild. Just his cheek, then his left shoulderblade, that’s not connected to the arm he’s cooking with. She’s sure she’d communicate with that gesture her apology for speaking in cruelty before, and her thanks for his willingness to, if not get back to normal, at least open that door.
But she can’t touch him, and there’s no guarantee it’d work anyway. She stays very still so as to not act on any impulses. “That’s important.” She agrees, simply. There’s more she should say. Instead, she looks at the refrigerator one more time.
“...You want toast?” is her offer, toast being the only warm part of a meal she can reliably contribute without destroying, normally.
“Yeah,” he says, mercifully unaware that touching him is a thing that she’s thinking about at all. “Toast is good.”
When: Approx. week 3 of the Blue Team in “Antarctica”, late night
Where: Kitchen
What: Impromptu Gold Team Leader Meeting
Warnings: Very stupid arguments; stupider feelings
It’s not that Gambit has been avoiding Rogue since the kissing incident, because they work together and they practically live together and they are literally married to one another, but it’s been a minute since they’ve had a real conversation alone. For a second when he runs into her in an otherwise vacant kitchen in the middle of the night, it looks like he’s thinking about just turning around and leaving. But her voice saying knew you couldn’t handle it is also playing on loop in his mind, so he stands his ground and crosses to the fridge.
After he opens it, he realizes he had no concrete plan for feeding himself outside of maybe snagging a beer, which feels too pathetic to do right in front of her, so he just stares at the contents of the fridge in silence as he tries to decide what to do or say.
“Who you think died first?” he asks eventually, a question that has clearly been weighing on him since Blue Team missed their first check-in.
Rogue doesn’t need to stay, with her barely-eaten sleeve of saltines she’s picking away at for a truly poor excuse at dinner. She stays anyway, perched on the counter. Feels important to keep her ground. None of this is the way they fight normally. That’s a matter of a few quiet, seething days, a blowout, then an understanding. This isn’t quite that anger. It’s different. Feels worse.
Her shoulders fall in some relief when he actually opens his mouth and says something, foolish and depressing as it may be. “Ain’t dead. They’re all too stubborn to go that way.” But she pauses, considers, extends the crackers and an awful joke, “But if they was, probably Kitty. Too skinny for all that cold.”
When things aren’t weird between them, Gambit enjoys recreationally arguing with Rogue about things that don’t matter. In fact, it’s one of his favored pastimes. For a moment it seems like he’s going to disagree with her for the hell of it, but then after he thinks about it for a second the tension in his shoulders drops.
“Yeah, Kitty,” he agrees as he considers her over the fridge door. He grabs a beer anyway, after all his deliberation, and then pries the cap off on his teeth to avoid having to get to the drawer she’s sitting over for the bottle opener. “It’d have to be. Rest of them couldn’t fix the Blackbird without her and they’d all be back by now if they could get airborne.”
Rogue frowns, because he shouldn’t have agreed that easy. He never does. She’s pretty convinced that’s what makes them a good team; the constant pushback against what each other is thinking. So she pokes back, arguing against him anyway.
“Nah, Scott would have to go too. That boy knows every bolt and wire on that plane. And without him, they’re all goners anyway.” She actually doesn’t love this idea once it’s exited her mouth, and frowns. Maybe she’s worried about Remy’s midnight beer too, but it suddenly doesn’t seem her place to say much about that. So she siphons her concern into something more obvious. She tries for a smile but it doesn’t quite make it. “Goodness’ sake, sugar. You break all your teeth out, I’m gonna have to do all the talking to the team. You want that?”
“My teeth are fine.” He bares them at her momentarily just to demonstrate that none are missing, and then flicks the bottle cap into the trash at the far side of the room, where it explodes with a tepid pop.
She rolls her eyes and decides she probably can’t get through this conversation sober. Rogue hops off her counter, grabs a beer of her own and pointedly pops it open using the countertop and the heel of her hand, which is another way a person can fulfill that task.
“So what are we gonna do?” She asks, abrupt, leaning back against the same counter she had been seated on before.
He moves out of her way by reflex, and keeps the distance as she heads back to her spot at the counter. He looks her over once, not quite wary, and notes with a pang of emotion he doesn’t bother to put a name to that she is wearing a shirt he traditionally thinks of as belonging to him. They share all their clothes, technically, so he can’t really claim that she’s stolen it from him. He’s not even sure it occurred to her when she put it on. So he doesn’t say anything, and instead just blows out a dramatic sigh through his lips as he pretends to consider the question.
“Well we gotta go look for them, don’t we?” He’s fairly certain that’s what the other X-Men would do for them, if they were stranded in Antarctica.
The cold from that distance shouldn’t sting as much as it does, but Rogue feels it in her bones. She throws a protective arm across herself, drawing his shirt around her more tightly. She takes a single thoughtful sip of her beer.
“We do. So I’ll fly off with some of the crew in the morning, you stay here.”
He stands up a little straighter at this proposal, setting his beer bottle down on the table next to him. “Hell no.”
“You sure?”
She puts hers down too, crosses both arms over her chest and tries her best to look directly at him. “Cuz it’s an awful long trip to the South Pole in a mighty little plane for two leaders who can’t even live in the same two bedrooms.” This is an awful way to tell him that she misses him, and she’s sorry, but words have always come up easiest when they’re fighting ones.
“That’s different,” he retorts after trying and failing to summon a better argument for a moment. He doesn’t think they’ve been as far apart as New York and Antarctica since the day they met, which is to say nothing of the fact that the last team of X-Men who went to investigate the South Pole are currently MIA.
“How d’you figure?” She goads, because at least arguing with him feels better than pretending she doesn’t see him in the halls.
“Can’t just run off and leave me in charge of everything,” he gripes, taking a long swig of the beer. Part of him wants to suggest that he go looking for Blue Team and she stay behind instead, because he knows she wouldn’t like it either, but it’d be a bluff. He doesn’t really like that idea any more than the first one.
Rogue lets out a soft sigh. She knows he’s right. Takes all the wind out of her sails when he is. She allows herself to nod. “That’s the trouble,” she says, taking an equal swig to steel herself, “Don’t actually think I can do any of this without you.”
“Never have to,” he says automatically, and then realizes belatedly it’s hypocritical of him when he’s been avoiding her for the last month. He coughs, self-conscious, and becomes very focused on the label of his beer. “We can always leave Paige with the place.”
The quickness of the answer gives her strange comfort. Devil-tongued though he may be, he didn’t think about that. Means part of it’s still true. There’s some hope there. “You, neither.” She answers, in case he was wondering. Then she turns back towards the counter to eat another cracker.
“Could tell her it’s her own branch of the team, sweeten the pot. Rose Gold team. Fool’s Gold.” She chances, casual, over her shoulder.
“She’s no fool,” he replies, although he does also chuckle at the joke. It’s a good enough one, even if the idea of leaving the juniormost members of the X-Men on their own isn’t funny in its own right. He likes to think he and Rogue are too smart to fall victim to whatever stupid thing happened to Blue Team, but part of the risk of investigating is not coming back. He doesn’t want to think about that right now, though, even if they will be going together.
“You want real food?” he offers.
“Please. Hero.” She sits at a kitchen chair to give him space to work in, wholly abandoning the cracker she’d been going for. Feeding herself proper isn’t something she’s great at without him. She lets it all lapse into silence for a few moments, and although they haven’t come near addressing their underlying issues, it feels more homey. Like things should be.
Enough, even, that she has the courage enough to turn her face up to him, resting her chin on her gloved hand. “Remy. Will you come home tonight? Know a few cats who’d be awful peeved if they didn’t get some quality time before we head to Antarctica.”
He’s just swinging the fridge door shut again when she asks, and he looks genuinely surprised when he glances over at her. The tentative conversation between them and the peace offering of eggs and bacon are one thing. Going back to normal is another ask altogether, and one he still isn’t entirely sure he’s good for. But he’s never been particularly skilled at telling her no, and even as he turns the burner on the stove up he already knows what his answer will be.
“Might as well,” he says, because he can’t admit how much he really wants to aloud. “Get a good night’s sleep and everything.”
If she could touch him now, Rogue thinks, she’d stand and kiss him. Nothing wild. Just his cheek, then his left shoulderblade, that’s not connected to the arm he’s cooking with. She’s sure she’d communicate with that gesture her apology for speaking in cruelty before, and her thanks for his willingness to, if not get back to normal, at least open that door.
But she can’t touch him, and there’s no guarantee it’d work anyway. She stays very still so as to not act on any impulses. “That’s important.” She agrees, simply. There’s more she should say. Instead, she looks at the refrigerator one more time.
“...You want toast?” is her offer, toast being the only warm part of a meal she can reliably contribute without destroying, normally.
“Yeah,” he says, mercifully unaware that touching him is a thing that she’s thinking about at all. “Toast is good.”
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