Author's note: Last chapter! (I did say it was short.) Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed yourselves! Like a lot of you, I've been very frustrated with most of the story-lines that have involved Rogue and Gambit over the last few years (the rare exceptions being Wood's initial run on the all female X-Men, Gambit's solo series, and some of All New X-Factor) so I decided to make up my own stories to share with anybody who cared to read them. Glad they are finding a happy audience. Thanks again!

Chapter Two

"Look out!" Rogue yanked him down and on top of her a split second before the blast blew a matching hole in the backside of the car, the small space filling with smoke. Remy wanted to take the time to admire the view of her underneath him, the feel of their bodies twisted together, but Rogue shoved him, rolling them to the other side of the elevator. "Move!" she hissed into his ear, catching its lobe between her teeth and lips, pulling his powers as she did, and slipping her hands into the inner pocket of his tuxedo jacket where he kept his spare playing cards. Remy rolled to a fighting stance and strained his eyes in the clearing smoke.

To Remy's surprise, the gleaming red and gold armor of Tony Stark's alter ego Iron Man filled the tattered void of the elevator's doors, raising his hands and attacking again, the couple dodging his flares.

"You're sure not bein' a good host, sugar," Rogue scolded from behind Gambit. "What bug crawled in your shorts?" When Stark took aim again, she charged a card with her borrowed powers, and when thrown, the projectile detonated against Iron Man with the force of a small bomb, sending him hurtling backwards through the broken doors in a shower of sparks. "We gotta get out of here. There's no way that's gonna stop him for long. We got no room to maneuver in here, and if he's all riled up…" She shook her head, and Remy helped her to her feet. He jumped in the air and popped open the ceiling hatch with his fingertips.

"Next floor, men's suits and women's lingerie," he laced his fingers and offered Rogue a boost, but she rolled her eyes, kicked off her heels, and, grasping the hem of her gown, jumped, bouncing off the nearest wall into the exit in the ceiling. Shimmying up and out of the hole, her escape gave Remy a sneaky flash of mile long leg ending in lacy black panties.

"Mon dieu," he stared, dumbfounded, but heard the electronic lurching of Iron Man's components coming back online. Rogue's head, surrounded by the halo of her white and auburn hair, appeared in the hatch.

"You need a hand, sugar?" she teased. Remy hurriedly shooed her out of the way and scrambled up after her. She helped him to stand on the creaking platform. "What did you steal from Tony this time?" she questioned. Remy scowled and took a look around the dimly lit elevator shaft. A rim of steel I-beams announced each successive floor, the doors of which were barely visible in the near darkness. The thick cables rising from the middle of the car continued their journey skyward, disappearing into inky blackness just out of view.

"Nothing!" he cried defensively. "Lately…" his mumble was drowned out by another volley from inside the elevator, the blasts ripping through the ceiling hatch, doubling it in size. Without a word between them, Rogue and Gambit allowed years of teamwork to take over, muscles controlled by instinct, fluid motion over conscious thought, they unleashed dueling barrages of charged cards, eluding blasts from the outstretched hands of Iron Man as he rose through the hole he had widened and continued to strafe them from the air.

"Tony!" Rogue jumped to the corner of the shaft closest to her Avengers' teammate and dangled from her arm, hooked on the ledge of the I-beam. "I don't know what your problem is, what you think Gambit has done, but this has gone too far!" With no response, Stark turned his attention to her and shot twin lasers her direction. She jumped, Remy thankful she had absorbed his agility along with his kinetic converting powers, the discharges narrowly missing her before she managed to reach the next layer of beams and huddle in the space before the doors to the subsequent floor. Remy leapt from his own perch and, using the heavy cables as pivots, spun around the backside of the technological marvel, peppering Stark with a barrage of cards that staggered the construct and dropped him to the roof of the elevator car. Stark whirled after Remy, blitzing the shaft with laser fire, clipping the cables as the beams passed them by.

Oh, fuck, Remy thought and jumped away from the car. Stark, in his fancy suit, would survive an eighty story fall. Remy would not.

"Up here, Cajun!" Rogue screamed. A sliver of light split the doors of the next level where she had managed to pry them apart.

"Great party, M'Sieu Stark," Remy said a silent prayer and aimed matching charges, one for the remaining cables, one for the thrusters of Iron Man's suit. Both hit true and the car dropped like a stone, the sputtering Stark-suit stranded on the roof, still sending raging laser blasts towards them as he fell.

Together, Remy and Rogue heaved open the doors and fell through them onto the dull geometric pattern of office building carpet. Remy forced the sliding doors closed and leaned breathlessly against the panel. His eyes found Rogue, the hem of her dress in her hands, her face screwed into a determined scowl.

"Anything I can help you with, chere?" he sashayed towards her.

"Evening gowns ain't made for running, and if this ain't over…" she answered and attempted to rip the material. Shame, Remy thought, such a beautiful dress. He touched her wrist gently.

"Let me," he murmured and knelt in front of her, his eyes paying worship to the creamy swath of skin highlighted against the dark fabric. "How short you want it?" His fingers trailed the edge of the silk up the length of her thigh, delighting in the goosebumps his touch left in its wake.

"Remy…" he smiled wickedly at the catch in her voice. "You want to tell me what that was all about?" She swallowed and forced business back into her voice and Remy set about his, laying a feather light charge to some of the threads woven into the folds of the fabric, enough for a section of the skirt to fall to the floor as neatly as being clipped by scissors.

"What was what about?" Rogue kicked the skirt remnant to the side and loomed over the kneeling Remy with her hands on her hips.

"Don't play dumb with me, sugar." Remy stood and faced her, his temper rising. "Why are you here?"

"For your information, I have an invitation." He crossed his arms, irritated at her implications. "Came here for the party, same as you."

Rogue snorted. "Right. And you had no other reason for coming to billionaire industrialist Tony Stark's soiree? No ulterior motive?"

Just to see you, was what he wanted to say, it was the truth, but the naked, raw, painful truth had always been so hard for him to give her. Logan was right, she was so angry, angry at him, angry at the world. If she would let him, he would help her forget it all, but at the moment his temper got the best of him. "Why you always gotta think the worst..?" his voice rose, but he choked on his anger when he caught sight of Iron Man in the hallway over Rogue's shoulder, moving their way, fast. He grabbed her this time, and whirled her around a corner, shielding her body with his. "I swear," he whispered forcefully into her ear, their hearts pounding against each other, "things are square with me and Stark." She nodded sharply.

"On three?" she whispered back. He kissed her forehead, and three counts later they flung themselves from their hiding place, Remy high, Rogue low, cards flying from their outstretched fingers and hitting their mark with a magenta hued burst that knocked Iron Man to his knees. Rogue landed with an inelegant thud and Remy hauled her to her feet.

"Run!" he yelled and they sprinted down the corridor, the hall lined with the wooden doors and glass walls common to every modern office building. Lousy cover. They needed to find a good place to hide until they could get this sorted out, whatever the hell Stark's problem was with him this time, or barring that, they needed to stop Stark, permanently. "Your new boss be mighty persistent, chere!" he puffed as they rounded another corner. Rogue skidded to a stop.

"Different suit…" she murmured, her green eyes wide and confused.

"Let's go, Anna, he comin'!" Remy tugged insistently on her arm.

"But, it's a different suit!" she sputtered. They started running again, getting lost inside a maze of wood and glass, but after a handful of twists and turns, Rogue grabbed his elbow and forced him to his knees against the glass outer wall of a conference room, the darkened interior housing a massive table surrounded by rolling chairs.

"Anna…" A bewildered and breathless Remy was ready to yell at her when she reached deep into the bodice of her dress and produced a cell phone from the depths of her cleavage. His jaw dropped to the floor, but her jaw remained stubbornly set.

"It's a different suit," she hissed through clenched teeth. "It's not red and gold, like before, this one was red and silver." An exasperated Remy held up his hands in frustration.

"So he changed suits! Who cares? He's gonna kick our asses either way if we don't move ours first…" She held up a finger and an eyebrow to shush him, and put the phone to her ear. Remy huffed a deep angry breath and blew the air out through flared nostrils.

"Logan?" Anna whispered into her phone. "Is Stark nearby? Can you see him?" Remy frowned and tiled his head towards her, leaning close enough to hear, to smell her skin. Logan's voice rumbled from the small speaker.

"Sure is. Can taste his cologne from here. Where are you, anyway? I sent the Cajun after you." Rogue dropped her head against Remy's and sighed.

"He's with me, we're upstairs, we…" The glass of the conference room exploded in a crystal wash of blaster fire. Rogue screamed, and Remy did his best to protect them both from the jagged projectiles, catching a glimpse of the decidedly red and silver suit shooting through the other side of the conference room. He threw the barefoot Rogue over his shoulder. Yippee Ki-ya…

"Stark's not in the suits!" she crowed from his backside, charging cards and throwing them at their assailant, driving it back. "Just like when the Avengers attacked the school! They're empties!" Remy grabbed ahold of an office chair and concentrated, charging the chair, shoving it towards the autonomous armor. They made a break for it.

"Remy!" Rogue shrieked, but they ducked into an alcove just as the blast detonated, the heat and debris enveloping the hallway next to them.

"Any chance that stopped it?" he asked breathlessly, but instead of answering Rogue kissed his lips, pulling a bit more power.

"You sure know how to show a lady a good time," she smiled, her eyes sparkling. He stepped back slightly and read the nameplate on the heavy looking door, the walls surrounding it solid, devoid of the glass decorations of the other offices.

"P. Potts." He smirked. "Seems like a pretty good place to hide, chere. If anywhere gonna be built like a bomb shelter…" She poked her head cautiously around the edge of the wall.

"It's also gonna have the best security, sugar."

"Pish posh, Anna," he cracked his knuckles and pulled out his lock picks again. "Just watch me work."

She chuckled warmly. "Just do your thing, Cajun. I'll watch our backs." He was sweating by the time the last tumbler clicked into place, the lock more challenging than he was willing to admit, expecting poison darts or a trap door to open underneath his feet as he slowly stepped into the large, airy space. Rogue followed, and, taking careful quiet steps, she moved to the desk and turned on the lamp. The room was massive, the decor much like the woman who worked there, simple, understated chic. Remy closed the door and locked it again, jamming a nearby chair under the handle, turning to take in the sight of Anna highlighted against the floor to ceiling windows, the Manhattan skyline at night laid out twinkling before them.

"Better call for help, I guess, let someone know what's going on." She turned and grimaced.

"Dropped my phone," she wrinkled her nose. "Pretty sure I remember Logan's number." They moved to the desk and Rogue picked up the surprisingly low-tech, multi-line phone perched on the corner.

"That's sort of unimpressive for the CEO of the world's leading technology firm. Do you have to dial nine first?" he kidded, pacing slow circles while Rogue rang for the cavalry.

"I'll put him on speaker," she regarded Remy, Logan answering on the first ring.

"What the hell's going on, darlin'?" their burly teammate growled. "Fire alarms are goin off in the building, you're nowhere to be found. We gotta evacuate the civilians and Stark is screamin' about some security breach…"

"Not really sure what's happenin', sugar, was hoping you could tell us." The muffled sounds of a panicked crowd in the background threatened to drown out Logan's voice, but Stark's cut in.

"You're calling from Pepper's office." The billionaire didn't ask, he told, barely taking a breath. Remy walked back to Rogue and leaned over the phone, and she raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

"Yeah," she said slowly, "how did you…?"

"The building's sensors are showing you there, Gambit, too." Stark hissed through the speaker. "Well, that explains it. I thought I told you not to go within fifty feet of my lab, LeBeau?"

"I didn't!" Remy raised his hands defensively. "I swear! We were just takin' a ride in the elevator!"

"To what floor?" Tony's growl could have matched Wolverine's in that moment. A usually unflappable Remy sputtered.

"The roof! Technically, not even a floor…"

"The elevator, on its way to the roof, passes through the floor housing the laboratory, genius," Stark retorted hotly. Rogue glared at the phone.

"What are you dancin' around, Stark? Why would it matter if Remy got close to your lab?" Remy sat on the corner of Pepper's desk as the realization dawned on him.

"The new security system, eh, M'sieu Stark?" He shook his head ruefully and Rogue continued to stare daggers into the phone.

"What's he talking about, Tony?" Rogue demanded.

"The new security system I installed, it uses spare suits as a last resort to protect the lab. They're only activated when the main computer senses the bio-signature of anyone flagged as…hostile… within a given range."

"Hostile." The word from Rogue was calm, but laced with a murderous rage barely contained, Tony giving it right back to her.

"Your boyfriend broke into my lab. He stole from me. Forgive me if I don't believe him when he says he won't do it again. Be thankful I let him come in the building at all."

"That was to save a friend!" Remy protested. "You said you understood, that there were no hard feelings, now I find I'm on your most wanted list? Don't know whether to be angry or flattered, mon ami." Logan's cigar-carved voice ripped down the line.

"We'll settle this shit later. Can you shut it down, Stark?"

Tony sighed. "Yeah, but it'll take me a few minutes, some of the building's internal communications will have to be rerouted thanks to the firefight. Getting near the lab is what triggered the system, dammit, you would have been fine if you would have stayed where I told you to! Pepper's office is pretty heavily shielded, but once the suits have your scent…" Something heavy struck the door and wall, rattling Remy's teeth with a concussive boom.

"We got company!" Rogue roared into the phone.

"We'll get to you as soon as we can, 'til then, sit tight!" Logan barked, the sizzling sound of blasters rippling the door, threatening to melt it from its reinforced hinges.

"Best hurry!" Remy stepped into the middle of the large space, looking for any tactical advantage. He had hoped the room would hold off any attackers, that Stark would have outfitted his lady's office to withstand an army, but if the onslaught beating on the door was any indication, they were running out of time with nowhere else to hide. His eyes found Rogue, by the window again, running her hands along the thick glass.

"Too bad I still can't fly, sugar," she said softly, her voice nearly drowned out by the cacophony caused by the roving robotic enforcer. He crossed the room in a few long-legged strides and turned her to face him. Wrapping her in his arms, his lips found hers, her hands twining sinuously into his tousled hair, their hearts pounding against each other. A different pounding, of the world around them, snapped them both back to reality, the reinforced wood of the doors quaking ominously. They parted, breathless. "Nowhere else to run, Remy." He smiled sadly. If she got hurt because of him, he'd never forgive himself. "It's got us cold."

"There's a ledge under that window, and a balcony one floor down, one floor over…" Rogue bit her lip and cast a glance where he pointed. "I could blow the glass...if we could get to it, then get back in the building on another floor…" The room thundered and shook with the construct's fury. They ain't gonna get to us before that thing gets in here, he thought ruefully, and we can't fight it much longer. No choice. Much to his chagrin, Rogue nodded her agreement.

"This is a terrible idea…" he shook his head and spread his fingers along the glass, tracing a circular charge across the glossy surface, hoping to slice a hole big enough for them to climb through, hoping he could keep it in one piece to avoid any people on the streets below, hoping they could keep their balance ninety stories up… "Get ready," he grunted, the fine control required sending spasms through his body. The circle cut, he kept his fingers lightly charged and pulled it free, the glass clinging to the kinetic energy radiating from his body. "Go!" he yelled at Rogue, who scurried through the opening onto the precarious ledge, the rush of air from the outside whipping her hair into a frothy cloud. A new suit of armor, this one red and blue, came crashing through the door. Remy Frisbee-d the charged circle of glass at the assailant, using the distraction to slip through the opening himself. Rogue was crawling forward on her hands and knees, Remy following hot on her heels.

"Now what, Cajun? This was your plan!" The rest of the window exploded behind them in a deluge of fragmented glass, the armor soaring outward into the night sky, hovering malevolently above them. Remy froze, his back pressed against the cold steel of the tower's outer wall. Rogue's fingers grabbed for his. "Last card. I'm all out of ammo." She had a single charged card ready in her other hand. "Last ride, sugar?" The empty iron shell took careful aim.

"Then we take it together," Remy answered, his stomach twisting as he pulled his own final card from the pocket of his tattered tuxedo jacket. They threw, the armor fired, the explosions meeting and combining somewhere in the middle, the shockwave knocking the machine backwards and crumbling the ledge beneath Rogue, sending her hurtling forward. Remy clawed frantically for her, her fingers slipping from his grip. Her face frozen in mute terror, she fell.

"NO!" Without time for conscious thought or action, he screamed and flung himself from the ledge, chasing her freefall through the sky.

"Remy!" she sobbed as he reached her, their arms wrapping around one another. Seconds was all they had left, their lips meeting in a feverish crush. So much left unsaid, so much left undone, but he would not live without her, regretting a great many things in life, but not following her this final time…

Remy's body lurched from the impact, but not the one he had expected. He opened his eyes tentatively, stunned to find the pair floating safely in mid-air.

"Geez, not melodramatic or anything, you two." He pulled his lips from a wide-eyed Rogue and turned to find Lorna, her crimson dress fanning out around her, her magnetic powers carrying her and the dazed duo slowly to the ground. The red and blue suit followed them, docile courtesy of Polaris's magnetic manipulations. "What the hell were you thinking?!" his teammate scolded when they landed. He and Rogue clutched each other desperately, shaking, barely stopping each other from dropping to their knees. Remy swallowed thickly.

"I knew you had my back, boss." He winked at Lorna, but she just rolled her eyes. Remy put on his serious face. "Thank you, Lorna. I can't ever repay you for this." Lorna nodded and smiled slyly at the reunited pair.

"I'll think of something," she teased. Logan shoved his way through the small crowd that had gathered on the street.

"Stark's got that crap shut down, rest of the heroes are busy watching civilians thanks to all the trouble you caused. Thought I told you to stay put?" he growled, patting them both over to check for any injuries. Remy kissed the top of Rogue's head and held her close.

"Stay put, mon ami?" He inclined his head and caught sight of Rogue's green eyes, shiny with unshed tears. "You got it, bub." He dipped her back and moved in to kiss her, but she put a hand between their lips, her eyebrows drawn together in another angry scowl.

"You jumped," she whispered hoarsely. He kissed the palm of her hand and leaned into it.

"Oui."

"Why did you do that? I wouldn't have wanted you to die…" His red on black eyes burned into her. They had a lot to talk about, had a long way to go, but the truth was as good of place to start as any.

"Told you a long time ago, Anna, life ain't worth living without you in it…"

She dropped her hand to his lapel and pulled him closer, their lips saying more than their words ever could.

The End