Chapter One
Remy turned away from the kids; they were safe now, they didn't need him. He didn't know quite why he was sure that they were safe, he just knew that they were. The man who had collected them didn't mean them any harm, he'd stake his life on it.
'There's room for one more,' he heard in his head.
Remy smiled. A telepath, of course. No wonder he felt reassured. Still, he had to be a pretty strong one to get past Remy's natural shielding. His powers had been reduced after his time as a prisoner on the Island but he still had a mental shield, even if it wasn't that strong.
'I might be able to help with that,' the telepath told him, clearly having heard Remy's thought.
'Thanks, but I'm not exactly the joining kind, mon ami. Besides, I gotta check on my buddy.'
'As you wish, but if you change your mind, look up Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Westchester, New York.'
'I'm a little old for school.”
'I'll also be needing teachers. In any case, the offer stands.'
“Thanks,” Remy said out loud, before turning and heading back to where he last saw Logan. He turned back as he heard the jet take off, momentarily wondering if he'd made the right decision.
Remy looked over at the girl beside him. He was doing his best for her, really he was, but it just wasn't enough. He had taught her everything he could, which was namely how to steal, but a girl needed more than that. She needed proper schooling, friends and people her own age around to hang around with, not a thief with a hero complex.
She was 16 and at this rate she, like him, would be condemned to a life of crime. After all, without even a high school diploma, the best she could hope for living legally was minimum wage, flipping burgers or something similar.
Once again he thought about Charles Xavier and his school.
It had been about a year since he'd encountered the man on Three Mile Island and he'd been unable to forget the offer of a place at the school. He still maintained that he wasn't really the teaching kind, but this wasn't just for him anymore, it was for her.
She had been living from dumpsters and doing an awful job of picking pockets when he found her, and fool that he was, he just had to rescue her. His intention had been to find her family for her, but it quickly became clear that she had very little memory of her past, and so he had asked if she wanted to stay with him. He expected her to say no, he was hardly trustworthy after all, but she had agreed. He realised that she must truly be desperate.
She was a quick study and quickly became an asset to him, but he was beginning to realise that if he didn't get her back onto a normal track soon, like him she would be condemned to living the dangerous life of a thief for hire.
He sighed and turned away from her. He'd think about it and if he still felt the same in the morning, he'd see what she thought of the idea.
Remy's first thought upon seeing the school was that there must be plenty worth stealing in such a house, but he quickly pushed that thought aside. He put his hand on her shoulder.
“You ready to go in?” he asked.
She looked frightened and he wondered once again, what had happened in her past. Was she afraid because she had no memory and didn't know what to expect, or had someone made her afraid.
“You'll stay with me?”
“For as long as you want, petite, and if you don't like it, we'll leave together.”
She nodded, pushing a strand of white hair behind her ear,
“Then let's go.”
The door opened before they even knocked but Remy wasn't really surprised, this place was owned by a telepath, after all.
“Mr LeBeau, how nice to meet you, finally. And this must be Storm. Welcome.” He turned away and they followed after him, a little disconcerted at his welcome. “I've had rooms made up for you. Although it's against regulations, I've given you adjoining rooms in the staff quarters, until you decide that you'd like to join the other students.”
Even if he was a telepath, he must be incredibly strong to be able to tell that they were coming, Remy reasoned. Perhaps even strong enough to help Storm with her missing memories.
“I'll do my best,” Xavier assured him, turning to face them now that they had entered what looked like an office.
“I don't like it when you read my mind,” Remy said stiffly.
“And ordinarily, I wouldn't do so without permission, but I'm afraid that you are both broadcasting rather loudly. I'm sure it's nerves and that once you have calmed down and had a chance to settle in, your thoughts will be much quieter. Please, take a seat.”
Remy sat down on the desk chairs that Charles had indicated and Storm sat beside him. Charles spoke mainly to Storm, explaining about the school and how he might be able to help her regain her memories. Once she had relaxed, he suggested that she might like a tour with one of the students. She looked to Remy for permission.
He smiled. “Go scope the place out for us.” He winked which made her smile.
Xavier called another student, someone named Jean, and Storm happily left the office with the other girl.
“You're very good with her,” Charles said once they were alone.
“She's easy to be good to,” Remy brushed the compliment aside.
Charles gave him a look but didn't comment.
“So what're the fees?” Remy asked.
“No fees,” Charles explained. “Only those who can afford it need pay.”
“I can afford it,” Remy bristled.
“Perhaps, but we both know that your gains are a little, shall we say, ill gotten?”
Remy conceded the point gracefully, after all, he wasn't ashamed of what he did. “My money's not good enough for you?”
“Not at all, I simply don't wish to receive fees from illegal sources. As I'm sure you can understand, we are a school for mutants, we can't afford to take any chances.”
“You're worried I'll bring the wrong sort of people here?”
“Not at all,” Charles tried to smile reassuringly. “At the moment we are simply a prep school for gifted children but eventually, word will spread that we are actually a school for mutants. When that happens, certain powers will do whatever they can to bring us down, and I would rather not give them any ammunition.”
Remy couldn't argue with that logic.
“So where do I fit in?” Remy asked.
“Where ever you want, but I would be obliged if you would consider a teaching position.”
Remy looked around the office, feeling uncomfortable.
“I'm not really the kind to put down roots.” He had the feeling that Charles didn't believe him, but it was the truth.
“I understand that you have your own... interests, Mr LeBeau, but I'm sure we can accommodate you should you need it.”
“Let me get this straight, you don't want my money, but you'll employ a thief?”
“A master thief,” Charles corrected. “I did some checking into you when I discovered that you were on your way here, and I can find no trace of a criminal record. Quite a feat, I would say.”
Remy couldn't help but smile, taking it as a compliment. “Still, not exactly a trait you want in a teacher, non?”
“Let me show you something,” Charles said.
He led Remy down to the lower levels of the school, where the X-men were housed.
“What is this place?”
My school actually has two functions,” Charles explained. “The students are our public face but down here, that's where I and a few associates do what we can to keep mutants safe.”
Charles explained how cerebro worked, and eased some of Remy's tension when he let slip that he had actually heard the school being mentioned in Storm's mind, not Remy's.
Remy was especially intrigued by the idea of the Danger Room, which was still being constructed. Still, the technology behind it was amazing, and Remy couldn't help but think how good it would be to have such a thing to train in when he was planning a heist. He could literally do a break in again and again until he got it right.
Then he remembered that he was with a telepath and turned towards Charles, looking a little bit abashed.
“I actually think that your skills, especially your stealth, could be a very big asset to the team.”
Remy frowned, that wasn't the reaction that he was expecting.
“I understand that sometimes lines must be crossed, Mr LeBeau, and in the eyes of the law, our group would be considered vigilantes, however, I believe that what we are doing is for the greater good.”
“So you'd have no problem with me upping and leaving for a few weeks to steal something?”
“I'm not your parent, Mr LeBeau, and from what I have gathered, even they approve of your lifestyle. As long as you aren't working against the mutant cause and keep your affairs to yourself, I leave your conscience to decide the rest for you.”
Remy smiled, this seemed like an organisation that he could work with. Okay, it wasn't like the thieves guild, he wasn't being given approval to steal, but he was being given a free reign.
“Call me Remy,” he said, holding his hand out.
Remy stayed at the school, with Storm, for three months, until the summer holidays. He found himself teaching French and self defence, as well as helping to construct the Danger Room, which was the brainchild of Charles and a friend if his, a blue mutant by the name of Hank McCoy.
The school only had twenty one students at the moment, ranging in age from 12 to 18, and Remy liked those numbers. His pupils were more friends than students and he liked that.
Thankfully his charm worked wonders on them and Remy never had to be a disciplinarian in the classroom. They wanted to please him. It seemed that they boys wanted to be him and the girls wanted to be with him (he'd seen his name scrawled in a few girls notebooks). He was never inappropriate though. He liked women but he knew where to draw the line.
Besides, his movements after school hours weren't restricted and the local town had quite a few bars, so he was never short of adult female company when he wanted it. He did try to tone it down though and keep it to a few night a week, and in fact he had more freedom now than he'd had after he had met Storm.
After three months though, he was beginning to get a little stir crazy and had decided to take off over the summer. There was a job he'd heard about that had piqued his interest and he needed to stretch his muscles.
So far Charles' 'team of vigilantes' had only been in action twice. The first time was to rescue a local mutant who was being beaten, the second to collect a possible new student for the school from a religious cult. In the second instance, they didn't even have to resort to violence, though Charles had feared it, and in fact the cult seemed pleased to be free of the 'devil's spawn' as they had called the boy.
It broke Remy's heart to see an innocent boy being victimised for having a visible mutation, but then he had grown up with red on black eyes, so he could relate.
His unusual eyes had been turned to normal colour while he was a prisoner on the island and oddly, he missed them. Sure, it had made growing up hard, but it was an aspect of himself that he had grown to accept and even learned to like. He resented Striker all the more for robbing him of his eyes.
Charles had spoken about psychic surgery to try and restore Remy's former power levels but Remy was still unsure. He liked it here but it wasn't in his nature to be trusting, and even less so when it came to someone poking about in his head.
He'd asked Storm if she wanted to go with him but she was settling in well and making friends. Only about half of the pupils were going home for the holidays, the rest were runaways or had been disowned, so she'd have plenty of company. And as much as he cared about the kid, she was growing up and he needed to give her the space to do so.
She was recovering some of her memories now, with Charles help, and they finally knew that her real name, Ororo Munroe, though she preferred to be called Ro or Storm. They had also discovered that her parents were dead, though they had very few details about that yet. As much as Remy hated that she was an orphan, a part of him was also glad that she wouldn't leave him to return to her parents.
Still, once he left the mansion, he felt relieved to finally be a free agent again. He had two months of complete freedom in front of him now, and he intended to make the most of it.
After two weeks away, he called the mansion to check in. After six weeks, he was missing the place a little. Two months after he had left, he found that he was looking forward to returning, after all, there's only so many casinos you can visit before they start to get old.
His job was complete and he had absolutely no qualms about it. During his time at the mansion, he had decided that the best way for him to keep up thieving and in all good conscience teach the students that theft was wrong, was to only rob bad guys. It worked very well to salve his conscience.
Of course, it was usually bad guys hiring him to rob another bag guy, but he could live with that. And besides, that meant that his fees came from bad guys, which was just a form of daylight robbery, really.
Over the next year he even had a few chances to put his skills to use as an X-man. First he had to case a suspected new base for William Striker then rescue the mutants being held there. Thankfully the base hadn't existed very long and it was relatively easy to get the prisoners out since there were only a handful. Of course, that didn't mean it was a cake walk, but Remy was very good at what he did.
He also blew up the base as they left, something that had not been sanctioned by Charles, but Remy was more than happy to endure his disapproval, if it meant that it would take Striker longer before he could set up again.
His second chance to use his skills came when he was tasked with retrieving a copy of the proposed Mutant Control Act. Government facilities were a breeze to Remy and he didn't even need the others help to retrieve a copy of the document.
Thankfully, when the full details were made public (anonymously, of course) there was a public backlash and the bill was shelved, for a while at least. It kept coming back in more palatable formats over the next few years, and slowly, as mutants became more common, or at least more widely known about, public opinion started to change.
More and more people began calling for such a bill and a new bill was proposed, the Mutant Registration Act. It too would refuse to go away.
Remy played his part, stealing, bugging, following and generally making sure that the government and hate groups didn't get too out of hand.
At the end of that school year, Storm left for college. He hated it but he contented himself that it was what was best for her. She assured him that she would be coming back to the institute in the holidays, and to teach when she was finished. She stayed true to her word, meaning that while she was away at college, he spent more time at the school than ever before, simply because if he left for a job over the holidays, he wouldn't get to see her.
Finally he trusted Charles enough to let him perform his psychic surgery. It seems that Striker had tried a few different methods to limit Remy's power, the most dangerous being brain surgery that removed some brain tissue. Gambit explained that at one time he had had a secondary mutation that allowed him to heal quickly, which is probably why the CT scan of his brain hadn't shown any damaged tissue.
The most damaging of Strikers techniques had been his own attempt at psychic surgery. Whatever psychic he had used was clearly new and unsure what he or she was doing, so the walls that had been erected in his mind were poorly placed and very thick.
It wasn't a simple procedure and took Charles 14 straight hours to undo the damage that Striker had done to his mind. When he was finished, Charles was nearing exhaustion and Remy was in a coma for two weeks. Remy had known that was a possibility though, so he wasn't upset when he woke up. And the first time he looked in a mirror, he was thrilled. He had his eyes back.
When his powers started to flair out of control while in Striker's custody, Remy hadn't had a chance to get used to his power as they'd kept him sedated, so Charles had to help him deal with power levels that were almost uncharted.
As he suspected, Remy was a class 5 mutant, as was Jean Grey. Unlike Jean though, Remy's full power was only manifesting now, when he was a fully grown adult and able to better control his emotions. When he learned the truth though, Remy suddenly realised why Charles had insisted on having Remy teach the ethics classes for the past year. With power like his, came great capacity for both good and evil.
Remy wasn't upset. He had no intention of ever creating a blast to rival a nuclear bomb, or anywhere close. He was however, thrilled to have both his eyes and his healing power back. Not only that, the static shield around his mind was back, preventing any psychics from reading his thoughts, and he had his empathy back, allowing him to sense the emotions of those around him. It had been so long that he had forgotten how it felt to constantly feel other peoples emotions, and it took some getting used to again.
His mutation needed a lot of work. Whereas before a medium charge would result in a bang but little damage, now it resulted in a car sized crater. He had to relearn how to use his gift, and put much less effort into everything than he used to.
In fact for three weeks Remy, lived in the danger room as it was the safest place in the mansion and able to withstand an awful lot of power. Still, when he finally emerged, he had his powers under control and although it took him another four weeks to repair the damage to the danger room, he felt that it was worth it.
When Storm finished college, she joined him on the X-men team, as did Scott Summers, who graduated college at the same time. Jean Grey joined them a year later.
Scott didn't like Remy, probably because he had a nasty habit of flirting with his girlfriend, but Remy didn't much care.
Although the school had expanded to around 50 students, Jean, Scott and Ro had taken on teaching responsibilities, meaning that Remy could take off for a while without worrying about leaving anyone in the lurch. Besides, his father had been wanting him to go home for some time now.
He knew he'd be back. He just didn't know when.
Remy had tried tried to reconcile with his father but it hadn't gone well. After six months of trying, he blew up a table by accident, taking out three other rooms when it went off. He had left, knowing that it was his frustration with his family that had caused his mishap. Thankfully, no one was hurt but he knew that he couldn't stay there now. It simply wasn't safe with a power like his.
So he spent the next year travelling the country and taking on new jobs, until he began to feel home sick. Then he realised that home was no longer New Orleans, it was the mansion.
He returned to Xaviers school eighteen months after he had left.
There had been changes in his absence, namely that Scott was the team leader. Gambit didn't much like that but he found that if he dialled back the flirting with Jean, Scott became much more personable.
He settled back into life at the school with surprising ease and rarely felt the need to take on outside thieving jobs. Besides, he had more than enough money stashed away to last a lifetime, maybe two with all the poker he played on the side.
Everything in his life was good, until he saw her. Trapped in Logan's motorhome, in need of a hero and looking far too close to perfection.
He had never felt attracted to a student before. Sure, some of them were very beautiful and he could admire that beauty, but never had be had any desire to take it further. Until now.
He did the only thing that he could think to do, he left once more.
Rogue was slightly upset to find that 'the world's most dreamy teacher' was leaving just as she arrived, but she was so happy to finally find somewhere that she fit in, so she didn't think too much about it. Besides, they had hardly said two words to each other while he aided in her rescue, so she had no reason to think that it was because of her.
In his absence, Remy became something of a legend, his exploits exaggerated until he George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis, all rolled together to make the most dreamy, sophisticated and bad ass hero that had ever lived. Rogue enjoyed the stories but she didn't really believe them.
That was until after Magneto kidnapped her, then she got to see him for herself, finally.
She was being checked over in the infirmary after her ordeal, but she knew she was fine. Logan had healed her so it was him that she was worried about, but she dutifully sat and allowed Jean a free reign, mainly because that meant that she got to stay down here, with Logan.
She couldn't believe that she'd almost killed him again.
That was when he came in, looking like sex on legs with a devil may care air about him, and she was forced to admit that perhaps the students hadn't been exaggerating. Well, not much.
“Rogue,” he smiled at her. “I was sorry to hear what happened. Are you okay?”
“I'm fine,” she smiled.
“I'm sorry, I should have been here. If I had been, maybe-”
“It's fine,” she cut him off. “It's Logan that I'm worried about.”
Remy finally looked over to the other bed, where Logan lay comatose.
He couldn't believe that he'd upped and left when Rogue was in danger. He couldn't believe that he owed Logan a debt of gratitude for saving her.
One thing was for sure, he wasn't leaving again. He couldn't have her for so many reasons, but he could keep her safe.
Besides, he wanted to catch up with Logan again, so it was easier than he thought to talk himself into staying.
“Here,” he said, brandishing a pie dish, which he had kept hidden behind his back.
“Mississippi mud pie!” she asked, her eyes lighting up.
“Oui, made by my own fair hands.”
He had agonised over what to give her. He wanted to give her chocolates or roses, but knew that they weren't appropriate gifts from a teacher to his student. Baking seemed like a good choice, after all, people often baked for sick people, and he had been able to put some effort in without looking like a love sick fool.
“You cook?” Rogue asked.
“Oui.” He placed the pie down on the table my her bed and got a plate and knife out from his pockets. “Enjoy, petite, and get well soon.”
He turned away.
“You're leaving?” She sounded disappointed and his resolve almost broke. “Aren't you gonna share it with me?”
“I have class, petite, but Jean assured me that you will be free soon, and I know there's a lot of people who would be interested in sharing a slice with you.”
Rogue nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Mr LeBeau.”
“Oh no!” he looked aghast. “Hasn't anyone told you? No one calls me Mister Anything. It's Remy or Gambit.”
“Why not Mister?” she asked.
“Makes me feel old,”
Rogue smiled, he didn't look a day over 25 and he was worried about feeling old!
“Okay, Gambit, I guess I'll see you in class?”
“Oui, petite. And try not to worry too much, Logan has survived much worse.”
“Thanks,” she smiled gratefully and Remy finally took his leave.