DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Marvel Comics and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Posted by: Elspeth (AKA Elspethdixon).

Author's Notes: This is an X-Men Evolution AU. The show's producers finally saw the light and added Gambit to the series, but I have to confess to being a bit disappointed that they made him an adult. We don't get to see teenage Gambit in all his juvenile delinquent glory. This story is my attempt to correct that. Thank you to Draqonelle, fellow X-Ev fangirl, who helped me come up with ideas.

The excerpt from Jean's torrid romance novel comes from a real book, Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon (I heartily recommend it to all hurt/comfort fans). The lyrics quoted at the beginning of the chapters, as well as the chapter titles and over-all title, are from (and I apologize for not mentioning this before) the musical Oliver!, which is based on Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist. This chapter also contains my first Jean POV, and I apologize in advance if I didn't get her right--I have a harder time getting into her head than I do with the other characters.

Ships: Hints of Rogue/Gambit, hits of Scott/Jean. Kurt/Amanda and Lance/Kitty also mentioned.

Consider yourself our mate.
We don't want to have no fuss
For after some consideration we can state
Consider yourself...
One of us!!

The weekend finally rolled around, and Hank and most of the younger X-Men departed on their West-coast field trip, leaving Jean, Scott, Kurt, Rogue, and Remy with the run of the mansion. For the first evening, it was fun, but as the long, rainy hours of Saturday crawled past, the comparative solitude quickly began to pall.

"Bored, bored. Bored. Bored, bored, bored, so bored. Bored," Kurt chanted, swinging back and forth in time to his words. He was currently hanging upside down from the den's light fixture, his neck craned back so that he could peer over Jean's shoulder at the magazine she was trying to read. "Is He The One?" the title at the top of the page read. So far, Duncan had scored a 15, putting him in the "possible date, but don't stop looking" category. Magazine quizzes were silly anyway.

"Shut up, elf." Rogue threw one of the couch pillows at him, startling him enough that he lost his grip on the ceiling and landed on the couch with a thud.

"Ach. Now I'm in pain. Pain, pain. Pain, pain, pain…."

"Don't make me hurt you," Rogue snarled, brandishing another pillow. "Again."

"Okay, okay, I'll shut up." Kurt folded his arms across his chest and sulked like a blue thundercloud. "Geesh, you are so mean."

Beside Jean on the other couch, Scott turned another page in his own magazine, trying to tune out the sound of the argument and focus on boning up on his surfing knowledge. Since Scott didn't surf, he had to have chosen that particular piece of reading material with Alex in mind. She couldn't help smiling as she watched him. It was just like Scott to study up on his brother's hobbies. Of course, now, he would set himself the task of finding out all of the risks associated with surfing, so that he could worry about them. It was kind of cute, in an overprotective sort of way.

Shuffle. Slap. Shuffle, shuffle. Slap. "I agree wit' Kurt," Remy announced, as he laid out what must have been his tenth straight game of solitaire. "Can't smoke on de roof 'cause it's rainin', can't watch TV 'cause dere's nothin' on, an' dis game gets old real fast. Anyone up for strip poker?"

"In your dreams and my nightmares," Rouge told him flatly.

"You sure dey nightmares?"

Rogue picked up the pillow she had threatened Kurt with and brandished it at Remy.

"'Kay, I hear you. Didn't really want to see Scott naked anyhow."

Kurt made a disgusted face. "That is so not cool."

"What makes you think I'd lose?" Scott asked indignantly. "Not that I'd play cards with you, the way you cheat." He shook his head, not glancing up from his magazine. "We can't go into town to see a movie," he continued, returning to their boredom dilemma, "because none of us has any money, we can't fight the Brotherhood because they haven't done anything lately to deserve it…. We could always do a danger room workout."

"You sure you wouldn't rather duke it out wit' Alvers?" Remy moved a card from one pile to another, straightening the edges so that they all met exactly. "We all know 'bout your little crush."

"My-" Scott cut himself off mid-outburst. "Look, number one, insulting me like that is offensive to gay people, and number two, it's completely not true!"

"So, you don't enjoy all of dose little fights?"

"Of course not! Come on, you guys, somebody help me here."

Jean smiled wickedly. "Well, you know, Scott. There is a fine line between love and-"

"Finish that sentence, and girl or not, you're going to eat that magazine."

"Methinks de boy doth protest too much," Remy smirked.

"You!"

"Aw, leave him alone, Jailbait." Rogue tossed the textbook she had been mostly ignoring to one side and stood. "Fun as it is to see you two go at it like monkeys in a zoo, I think I'm gonna cut out and take a bubble bath while no one else is around to come and kick me out." She began heading for the doorway, and Jean rose to follow her. A bath sounded like a very good idea. Hot water, steaming with lavender bath salts, a good book, and no one bickering in the background. Should she take her copy of the Harvard Medical Journal, or that historical romance novel about the woman who went back in time to 18th century Scotland?

With a little wave to Scott, she followed Rogue out the door, then set off down the hallway toward her room, where the passionate adventures of Claire the modern nurse and her gallant highland lover awaited. If Jean couldn't go to California with Hank, she could at least go to the Scottish highlands with Claire.

^_~

Scott watched Jean leave the room, eyes lingering on her slim, graceful form, before turning to glare poisonously at LeBeau. The smarmy creep smirked at him and turned over another playing card.

"You're one to talk," Scott told him. "They should be announcing the wedding between you and Pietro Maximoff any day now."

LeBeau made a face. "Dat hyperactive little snot? Remy can do better den him."

"Yeah, like who? Tabitha?"

"Boom-Boom?" LeBeau shrugged. "She reminds me of my ex-girlfriend. All aggressive an' loud an' blonde. 'Sides, de two of us'd probably blow de bedroom up."

"Be careful around her," Kurt advised from the other couch. "She tried to trick me into stealing stuff with her before she left the X-Men."

"Sounds like she's even more like Belle den I t'ought." LeBeau smiled slightly, face going distant for a second. "De kind of femme dat gets you into trouble, de fun kind an' de not so fun kind." He reached up to swipe a piece of his ridiculously long hair out of his eyes and shifted his attention from his solitaire game to the old, rusty combination lock he'd picked up from somewhere around the mansion, fiddling with the dial. The thing was firmly locked, probably permanently so, without the combination, but he seemed to like fidgeting with stuff. "I'm t'rough wit' blondes for now. I t'ink I'll try my luck wit' brunettes, like Shades here."

"Taryn and I aren't dating anymore," Scott said. He flipped another page in his magazine, turning to an add for Dewy Webber longboards. A young man in an electric blue wetsuit posed on a long red and white surfboard, a giant wave curling over his head. He looked a little like Alex.

"I don't think he's talking about Taryn." Kurt grinned, the tip of his tail switching back and forth like a cat's. "Lance has brown hair. Too bad he's dating Kitty."

Scott suppressed the urge to hurl his surfing magazine at Kurt's pointy-eared head. "All right, that's it. You two stay here and goof off. I'm going to the Danger Room to blow stuff up. And I'm programming all of the robots to look like you!"

"You can do that?" Kurt looked up sharply, interested obviously caught. "Wow. Can you show me how?"

Scott knew he ought to say no, considering Kurt's past record with the Danger Room, and the fact that he had joined in with LeBeau's mockery provided a strong temptation to snap a refusal, but he also knew that both he and Kurt needed the practice. And it would be an opportunity to show off his knowledge of the Danger Room's controls, something he rarely got a chance to do. "If you apologize for hassling me."

"Kurt an' I are sorry we questioned your sexuality," LeBeau said, with less than perfect sincerity. He gave the dial of the combination lock one last spin and pulled it open with a snap. "We humbly beg your pardon an' request dat you show us how to-" he broke off for a second and cast a glance sideways at Kurt, "make robots look like stuff?" LeBeau, Scott remembered, had not seen a real Danger Room simulation yet. Logan and the Professor had been giving him simple training exercises, designed to test his control over his powers. LeBeau had never done a combat sim.

Scott smiled, deciding to temporarily forget his irritation with the other mutant. He had always liked running Danger Room programs, especially when he got to show them to someone new. They weren't really supposed to use the Danger Room for more than simple exercises without an adult's supervision, but since he was only going to show the others some sim designs, not actually run a training program, it would probably be okay. "Apology accepted. Come on, the control booth is this way."

Kurt bounced to his feet and beat Scott to the door, while LeBeau followed at a more leisurely pace. "Dese robots," he asked, as the three of them set off down the hallway, "can you make dem look like hot women?"

"Are you kidding?" Scott answered. "Of course."

^_~

Jean shook more purple bath crystals into the tub and then relaxed back into the hot, lavender-scented water with a contented sigh. Beautiful, beautiful heat seeped into her muscles, turning her skin red and bringing sweat to her forehead. She always ran her baths at a temperature just a few degrees below scalding. The heat felt good. Felt right. For some reason, her tolerance for high temperatures seemed to increase the stronger her control over her powers grew.

Leaning her head against the back of the tub, Jean picked up her novel and began to read. When Rogue had lent her the book, she had told Jean that it was "real romantic" and that the hero was amazingly hot. She had neglected to mention the extremely graphic torture scene.

Rogue never read anything normal.

Jaimie's good arm was tight around my shoulders and my wet face was buried in his neck.

"I know it does, mo duinne. And that's why you'll go now. So I'll know there is someone still who minds for me." He drew me close again, kissed me gently and whispered in Gaelic, "He will let you go because he thinks you are helpless. I know you are not." Releasing me, he said in English, "I love you. Go now."

All right, so it was romantic, in a slightly twisted way. The black and white tiles of the bathroom were replaced in Jean's imagination by the dank, stone walls of Colonel Randall's dungeon, where the imprisoned Jaimie endured the evil English officer's torments and waited for his love to rescue him. In her head, Jaimie had brown hair and a square jaw, and for some reason, her imagination kept trying to give him rose-tinted spectacles.

Strong and stoic yet sensitive, responsible, natural leaders who kept fighting against any odds; they just didn't make them like that in real life. Duncan would never undergo torture for her, she mused. Well, to be fair, very few guys in the real world would submit to torture at the hands of a creepy sadist for the sake of their girlfriends. Fortunately, the real world was rather short on creepy sadists.

Scott would do it, a little voice in her head whispered. Scott would do it for any of his team members, girlfriend or not. But there were very few guys around who were like Scott. Unfortunately.

If only she could find someone more like him. Duncan was handsome, popular, and clearly crazy about her, but then, he didn't know about her mutation. She suspected, deep inside where that little voice she sometimes tried not to listen to usually spoke, that he might not be quite so crazy about her once he found out. And he insisted on treating her like a barbie doll, or like the hero's girl in some old fifties movie. She had tried hinting that it might be nice if he were to ask for her opinion a bit more often, but the hints just seemed to bounce off.

Scott, on the other hand, always respected her opinion. She could really talk with him, in a way she couldn't with other guys. Of course, this might be because he didn't seem to register the fact that she was a girl, except in a vaguely brotherly sort of way. It was unfortunate, since she herself was beginning to notice that, while Scott might not realize that she was a girl, he was most definitely a boy. And not a bad-looking one, either.

Perhaps she should ask Scott to go with her to the second Sadie Hawkins dance. The repairs to the gym should be finished in a couple of weeks, and afterward, at least, according to Kitty, the student council planned to hold a second dance, to make up for the interrupted one. They wouldn't have to go as dates. No, it wouldn't need to be a date. The two of them could simply go as friends. Even if no romance was involved, Scott would certainly be more fun at a dance than Duncan, who had spent most of the last dance talking to his friends as opposed to actually dancing.

But then, asking someone else to the dance would most definitely mean breaking up with Duncan, and she wasn't entirely sure that she wanted to do that. While he'd never come out and told her that he loved her, Jean knew that breaking things off with Duncan would hurt him, and hurting him was the last thing she wanted to do. Still, was it fair to go on dating him when her heart wasn't in it?

^_~

"And this one," Scott continued, "is my favorite." He shut off the simulated image of Laura Croft, and hesitated before punching up the final set of commands. Maybe showing this one off would be going a bit too far, favorite or no. Kurt was going to snicker at him.

"Come on, show us," Kurt urged. He was perched on top of the giant computer console in the Danger Room's control booth, gazing down at the space below where Laura Croft had just been. "Who is it?"

"You guys promise not to tell, right?" Scott asked. When they nodded impatiently--they had already agreed not to reveal existence of the line up of eye candy to either the girls or any of the teachers--he pushed a final button and a painstakingly detailed 3-D hologram of Jean Grey in a bikini appeared in the middle of the Danger Room floor.

LeBeau whistled. "Très bien, mon ami. Dat done from life?"

Scott snorted. "I wish. No, wait, forget I said that."

Kurt was deeply impressed. "It looks exactly like Jean. Well, except that I don't think her, her um… Well, I don't think they're that big in real life." He snickered, right on cue. "You have a crush on her, don't you?"

There was really no point in denying it, with the evidence standing right below them in three digital dimensions. Scott looked at the floor. "Yeah, I guess."

He pointedly didn't acknowledge LeBeau's knowing smirk. The newest X-Man was leaning against the wall at the back of the booth, eyeing the hardware with suspiciously intent interest. Scott had made certain that his fingers were blocked from the thief's view when he typed the access codes. There was no knowing whether he could get through security protocols as easily as he could locks, but it was better not to take chances. LeBeau might wear an X-Man's uniform now, albeit a modified one--Scott just knew he'd chosen the shortened sleeves to show off his arm muscles, but why the other boy had chosen to wear a trench coat overtop it was beyond him--but he wasn't truly part of the team yet, and Scott couldn't quite bring himself to trust him.

"Does this one do anything?" Kurt asked. The Laura Croft image did a martial arts routine that was almost, Scott felt, refined enough for a real opponent to fight her. A little more work, and he, or someone else, might actually be able too.

"No." He shook his head. "That would be sort of creepy. I mean, it would be like watching some kind of clone of Jean. This one's for looking at only."

LeBeau's grin got a touch more crooked. "You got one of Rogue in lingerie?"

"Ew, no." Scott made a face. "She's two years younger than me. That would be perverted. Anyway, I'm not going to program lingerie. What would I do, scan in the Victoria Secret catalogue?"

"You can do that?"

"You're sick and depraved, LeBeau."

"'Ey, I'm not de one wit' de girly show computer program," LeBeau snorted. He seemed all set to deliver more obnoxious commentary, but suddenly his expression shifted, and he glanced past Scott to the console and out the windows to the room below. "I t'ink someone's comin'."

Scott followed his gaze to the console and saw the lights indicating that someone was getting ready to open the Danger Room's giant circular door blinking on. Quickly, he moved back to the control panel and started shutting the Bikini Jean program down. Of all of the programs to be caught playing with…

Kurt moved to help, slapping buttons at random with a panicked abandon.

"Kurt, wait." Scott tried to forestall him. "You could turn off something important, like the security protocols--" both the control booth and the Danger Room suddenly went dark, as the overhead lights shut off, most of the lights on the console following suit--"or the lights."

The door swished open to admit Rogue, silhouetted against the light from the hallway, and cycled shut again behind her, leaving the room in darkness once more. "What are y'all doing," she called out, sounding annoyed, "playing flashlight tag? This place is pitch black."

The computer panel beside Scott began to stir to life again, lights blinking on. "Mainframe accessed," a disembodied voice announced. "Security protocols off-line. Password accepted. Initiating program: Perfect Dark."

"Perfect Dark?" Kurt echoed. "What is perfect dark?"

As if in answer to his question, the darkened screen on the control panel suddenly came to life again, terrain imposing itself over the empty grid. Blinking lights representing combat droids began to appear amidst the outlines of walls and piles of rubble.

"Somet'in' bad."

And that was when the first laser beam flared red against the blackness below them. On the screen, the computerized outline of Rogue threw itself sideways, dodging the beam and rolling to its feet again.

This was not supposed to be happening. Obviously, Kurt had hit something important while trying to shut the bikini babes program off, and the result had been to set the Danger Room up for this. Whatever this was. It was not a combat sim Scott had ever encountered before, and it looked dangerous as hell.

"How you shut dis t'ing off?" LeBeau demanded, sounding on the verge of panic as the vid-screen Rogue dodged another laser sniper. Below them, the real Rogue was hidden in the darkness somewhere, the sound of her harsh breathing filtering through the intercom.

"Guys? Guys! " she shouted. "What are you doing? Make it stop!"

Another laser shot followed on the heels of her words, stabbing toward her with more accuracy than the previous ones. She ducked away, stumbling into the remains of a half-way destroyed wall, and let out a piercing shriek. On the screen, the thin line that designated the laser beam brushed so close to the Image Rogue's shoulder that it was impossible to tell whether it had made contact, or simply missed by millimeters.

"We have to get down there," Scott told the other two boys. "We have to get her out. Kurt?" He glanced toward the smaller boy.

"Can't you just turn it off?" Kurt asked. He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the computer console.

"No!" Scott snapped. "I don't know how. I've never seen this program before!" The outline of Rogue on the little screen was crouched behind the broken wall, no longer moving. Behind her, two floating droids hovered, ready to fire.

Two pairs of glowing eyes stared into his, wide and shocked.

"If Scott and I run interference, can you get Rogue out?" LeBeau asked Kurt. His voice was low, tight with strain. He was obviously forcing himself not to shout. "Can you find her down dere?"

"Ja, I can. I see better in the dark than in the light."

It wasn't a bad plan, as spur of the moment plans went. It might even work. Scott stepped forward and reached one hand out to catch hold of Kurt's shoulder. "Take us down there, Nightcrawler," he ordered, using his mission voice. Think of it as a mission, Kurt, he urged silently. Just another mission. The two of us can handle it. LeBeau was the unknown quantity, new and untested. Did he even know how to fight, or only how to pick locks and vault fences? "I'll try to keep those robot things off you. Remy-"

"One of dose t'ings goes after you, Kurt, or Rogue, I kill it," LeBeau said flatly. "Boom. No more robot." His eyes burned like two coals, the only part of him that was clearly visible in the faint light from the console. "Dey can't hide from me." A fan of playing cards seemed to materialize from nowhere in his left hand, pale in the darkness. And then Kurt teleported them, and the world winked out to be replaced by complete blackness.

When they reappeared down on the Danger Room floor, the blackness remained, pressing against Cyclops's eyes like a living thing. Somewhere near bye, he could hear the faint hum of one of the robots, and he turned his head automatically, trying to pinpoint it.

"Behind you!" two voices shouted at once, and Cyclops threw himself flat as a ruby-colored laser beam streaked through the space his chest had just been occupying. He hit the ground hard enough that the breath was knocked out of him, and for a moment he could only lie there, watching as a small, flat missile wreathed in pink fire soared through the darkness, faintly illuminating the space around it. When it hit the robot, the resulting explosion lit up the room like a lightning flash in a thunderstorm.

Nightcrawler was already bounding away through the rubble, a small lithe form that blended so well into the darkness that it was only his movement that made him visible at all. Beside Cyclops, LeBeau was crouched ready to spring, more glowing cards ready in his hands.

"Ça va?"

"Fine," Scott gasped. He climbed to his feet and took off after Nightcrawler, cursing inwardly as he stumbled over holes, ruts, and fallen bricks that the faint light provided by the burning robot failed to illuminate. LeBeau was right behind him, footsteps uncannily silent. He did not stumble. Like Nightcrawler, he moved like someone who could see.

As the two of them drew nearer to Nightcrawler, who was climbing a pile of rubble with the nimbleness of a spider monkey, a quartet of robot droids zoned in on them, as if angered by the destruction of their fellow.

All four droids seemed to come from different angles, two low, swooping in from either side in a pincher movement, and two diving down from on high like hawks. Cyclops pulled his glasses down and unleashed a burst of energy at the nearest, spinning at the same time to avoid the laser bolts fired by its companion. He found himself wishing desperately for his visor, and the added control it provided, even as the droid seemed to disintegrate before the force of his raw blast.

The air around himself and LeBeau was a web of energy, both from the lasers and from Cyclops's own blasts, which the remaining three robots managed to dodge with infuriating ease. LeBeau's explosive cards proved just as useless, the droids dipping or moving to the side just in time to avoid them. It was as if they had learned from their comrades' demises. They probably had.

The room was no longer solidly black, but half lit by explosions and flame, marking sites where the X-Men's attacks had failed. For a moment, Nightcrawler's silhouette stood out dimly at the top of the mound of rubble at their backs, a darker shape against the darkness, and then he was gone, vanishing down the other side in search of Rogue.

Cyclops felt a flare of heat against his left shoulder as a laser beam came within a bare inch of striking him. Hurry up, Kurt, he pleaded inwardly. Another robot had joined the battle, bringing the total back up to four. Beside him, LeBeau somersaulted out of the way of another laser, flicking two cards toward the new arrival. It swerved to dodge them, moving toward Cyclops, and he nailed it with an optic blast. Both cards continued going, one landing with a small explosion several feet away, the other taking out part of the wall above the two X-Men and sending a shower of debris down on them.

"Watch it," Cyclops snapped. He tried to dodge brick pieces as well as laser beams and didn't entirely succeed. A small shower of dust and chips of concrete rained down on him, one piece hitting his upraised arm hard enough that the muscle went numb.

He wasn't the only casualty. A series of dull, metallic clangs were clearly audible over the noise of the falling rubble as one of the robots, hovering too close to the wall, was half-buried by the mini-landslide of brick. Seeing it, LeBeau's apparent carelessness began to make sense.

Cyclops fired off another optic blast, incinerating this robot as easily as he had the first two. LeBeau was setting them up for him. Not bad. Maybe, just maybe, they were going to get away with this.

And then he heard Nightcrawler's startled yelp from beyond the mound of rubble.

Before the echoes from the sound could die, LeBeau had moved, flinging his entire handful of cards at the last two robots and turning to scramble over the rubble heap with almost as much agility as Nightcrawler. Cyclops did not wait around for the glowing missiles to hit. Feet slipping on the debris, he followed LeBeau up the mound, arm throbbing painfully where the brick had struck it.

The two of them slid down the other side in a shower of loose rocks, LeBeau managing to convert an obvious slip into a controlled roll partway through. They had barely reached solid ground when Nightcrawler and Rogue came pelting around a corner toward them, chased by two more robots. Obviously, Cyclops and LeBeau had not been able to distract them all.

Optic blasts and thrown playing cards kept the two droids busy until Nightcrawler and Rogue could cross the distance that separated them from the other two X-Men. Rogue, running full out, skidded straight into LeBeau, nearly knocking him off balance, as Nightcrawler slid to a stop before Cyclops.

"Fearless leader," Nightcrawler panted out, "behind you!" He pointed over Cyclops's shoulder, and Cyclops looked back to see the other two droids flying toward them all, reluctant to give up the battle.

"Nightcrawler," he ordered, "get us out of here."

Nightcrawler grabbed Cyclops's arm with one hand and wrapped his tail around LeBeau's wrist, then teleported all of them back up to the control booth. Less then a second after they disappeared, four laser beams criss-crossed the space where they had been.

^_~

Remy held Rogue tight against him as the bottom dropped out of the universe, his heart beating so fast and hard that it felt as if it were pounding through both their bodies. The world lurched, the floor beneath his feet returned, and wisps of sulfurous smoke drifted around them, stinging his eyes. He closed them, and held on harder. They could have died. Dieu, all of them could have died. There was a burned patch on the shoulder of Rogue's uniform, where one of the laser beams had come within a hair's breadth of hitting her. Those robot things played for keeps. Suddenly, a very, very vivid image of two of those laser beams coming within inches of his face flashed in his mind. He could have died.

"Let's not do that again," Kurt's voice suggested. "Ever." Something warm and furry uncoiled from around Remy's left wrist. Kurt's tail.

"You can let go a' me now, Swamp Rat." Rogue began to squirm and twist, pushing at his chest in an attempt to break his hold on her.

Remy opened his arms and let her go, summoning up his most charming smile, though she wouldn't be able to see it in the darkness of the control room. "Can't blame a man for tryin', chere." The endearment just slipped out, born of concern and fading fear. She had been shaking, moments ago. But, if Rogue wanted to pretend that she hadn't been scared, he'd uphold his side of the façade. "After de way you t'rew youself into my arms, I naturally t'ought dat…"

"Oh, shut up. And," she turned to look at Scott and Kurt, "thank you. Y'all saved me."

Kurt looked at the floor. "I'm sorry. I think it was my fault that the Danger Room went nuts. I didn't mean to press… ah, whatever button I pressed."

"It's not your fault, Kurt," Scott told him. It was hard to tell, in the blueish-green light of the console, but Remy thought he looked slightly pale. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have let us mess around with things down here in the first place."

"What the hell were y'all doing down here?" Rogue demanded. She folded her arms and glared at the three of them, green eyes narrowed.

"Not'in,'" Remy said hurriedly. The extra sim program was Scott's secret to protect, not his to give away.

"Yeah right," she snarled, but she let the topic drop. The four of them simply stood there for a moment, all of them looking through the windows of the control booth down at the darkness below. It was difficult to tell through the glass, but Remy was pretty sure something was still moving down there. The fires he and Scott had started burned fitfully, providing just enough light to illuminate most of the rubble and reveal that the robots had apparently gone into hiding, but he could still sense something moving. Maybe there was something down there that was even nastier than the little flying robots, something they had only just managed to avoid meeting. He thought about asking Kurt, whose eyes were even better than his in the dark, if he could see anything, but decided that he really didn't want to know.

"So," Scott managed after a few moments, "we should probably go and tell the Professor that the Danger Room is online and we can't turn it off."

Kurt seemed to wilt slightly. "Do we have to mention that it tried to kill us?"

"Yes," Scott said more firmly. "Yes, we do. God only knows what this program is."

"God might not know, but I bet Logan does," Rogue muttered.

Remy nodded. "Dis got his claw marks all over it." There was something moving down there. He was sure of it. He looked away from the darkness below and back to Rogue before he could catch more than an impression of heat and motion. A little voice in the back of his head that he didn't want to listen to whispered that it seemed about the right size to be a simulation of Sabertooth. The real Victor Creed could rip prison guards' throats out with his teeth. Just how accurate were these sims? He pointedly did not look at the little computer screen with the room's specs on it.

"Let's leave," he suggested.

Kurt was at the door in two bounds. Apparently, he shared Remy's desire to put some more distance between themselves and the things in the Danger Room. Rogue and Scott followed more slowly, Scott taking a long look at the little computer screen first. Maybe he was hoping to find some clue as to how to deactivate the program. If so, he was disappointed, for he straightened up after a moment and turned away from the console. As the four X-Men left the darkened room for the brighter light of the hallway, he caught up to Remy, walking beside him.

"How come you never told anyone that you could see in the dark?" he asked, sounding slightly accusing.

Remy shrugged. "Nobody asked." The truth was, he had felt more comfortable keeping part of his powers secret, an ace in the hole, as it were. Only amateurs displayed all of their cards on the first hand. He should have known that Scott would figure it out after seeing him move in the Danger Room. The other mutant still didn't know everything about him, though, he thought with a slight smile. Remy still had a few tricks tucked up his sleeve.

"I knew," Kurt volunteered. "He never complains when I keep the lights in the room low," he elaborated "and he keeps wearing those sunglasses even though he doesn't need to use them to hide anymore." He looked slightly surprised that no one else had managed to figure it out.

Remy shrugged again. "Like I said, nobody asked. 'Ey, eyes dis ugly got to be good for somet'in'."

Rogue glanced back over her shoulder at him for a moment, eyes appraising. "They're not that bad, Jailbait. Actually, I think they're kinda neat-looking." She turned her attention forward again and kept going.

"Vraiment?" Remy stared after her, startled. Nobody ever thought his eyes were "neat-looking." The best opinion he could usually hope for was "intimidating," or "unusual,"--neither of which were all that great, but both of which beat "freakish." She thought his eyes were neat. His smile widened. "You want a closer look, chere?"

She made a show of ignoring him.

Halfway to the Professor's office, Jean stepped out into the hallway to join them.

"Scott," she began, "there's something I want to…" she trailed off. "What happened to you guys?" She looked from Rogue's scorched uniform to Scott's much abused street clothes, taking in the obvious battle damage.

"The Danger Room went crazy and tried to kill us," Kurt announced.

"What were you doing?"

"That's what I asked," Rogue told her. "Swamp Rat here wouldn't tell me." She sorted. "I think I deserve to know if anyone does."

"I told you," Remy protested. "We weren't doin' not'in'. An' don't call me swamp rat, River Rat."

"That's a double negative, Swamp Rat. That means you were doing something."

Remy repressed the urge to stick his tongue out at Rogue and settled for smirking mysteriously at her instead. At least, he hoped it looked mysterious. Mystery, after all, was sexy, though Rogue, he realized, might not have figured that out, given the lengths she went to in order to surround herself with secrecy. If her make-up was anything to go by, sexy was the last effect she was aiming at. More like "undead."

On the other hand, the dark eyeliner was actually sort of intriguing. Not as intriguing as that see-through green top, but then, few things were. And she thought his eyes were neat-looking.

He could live with the nickname "Swamp Rat." After all, it was a step up from "Jailbait."

^_~

Logan heard the approaching group of students long before they reached the door to the Professor's study. Moments later, he caught the scent of singed cloth, sulfur, and an underlying hint of fresh blood. Either the mansion had somehow been attacked without Professor X or himself becoming aware of it, or they kids were fresh from the Danger Room. He was betting on the Danger Room.

The sound of the footsteps slowed considerably as the little group approached the study, and they hesitated a full half minute outside the door. The Professor and Logan locked eyes over the top of the desk.

"Better get your check book ready, Chuck," Logan advised. "I smell serious property damage." He settled back in his chair to watch the show, eyes fixed on the door.

Slowly, the door creaked open, and the mansion's remaining cast of X-Men shuffled in, Scott in the lead. Rogue was the only one in uniform, but all of them except Jean looked like the losing side of a small war, and all of them except Jean looked guilty.

Well, LeBeau didn't look guilty, but then, he never seemed to. When Logan had caught him shinnying down a drainpipe from the roof the other day, surrounded by the scent of cigarette smoke, in flagrant defiance of the mansion's anti-smoking rules, he had merely shrugged, grinned, and held out his empty, cigarette-less hands. Logan had been deeply tempted to loosen all of the rivets holding the drainpipe to the wall, to teach the kid a lesson the next time he tried to do a little B&E style climbing, but had decided that the Professor probably would not have approved.

He certainly looked disapproving now, though he knew about neither LeBeau's unauthorized cigarette nor Logan's thoughts regarding the drainpipe.

"Are you all right?" he asked the assembled students.

There was a lot of shuffling of feet and staring at the floor.

"Mostly, sir," Scott said, stepping slightly in front of the others, "but, um, we… We… The Danger Room is stuck on something really high level and we can't figure out how to turn it off," he finally blurted. "It's my fault," he added quickly, before anyone else could speak up.

"No, it's my fault," Kurt insisted. "I pushed the wrong button."

"It's not my fault." This from Rogue, who, in spite of her words, was standing just behind Scott's left shoulder in a visible declaration of support.

The Professor looked at them all silently for a moment, and Logan didn't even need to watch to sense the kids squirming. "I see," he said finally. "Would you mind explaining exactly what you were doing in the Danger Room, and which program it is that you are unable to turn off?"

"Let me," LeBeau hissed at Scott in a barely audible whisper. Barely audible, that is, to anyone but Logan. "You suck at damage control, Scotty. Scott was showin' me how de skins for de combat droids worked, sir," he continued in a louder voice. "So I could see what I'd be up 'gainst when I started doin' real workouts. We didn't mean to run any programs. Was an accident, I swear."

"Remy saw Rogue coming and we tried to shut the skins down so she wouldn't walk in on them." Kurt jumped in on the heels of LeBeau's words, just a little too quickly. "I tried to help Scott shut it off and hit something, and all of the lights went out."

"An' den Roguey walks in an' says somet'in' and dis urban combat program starts playin', wit' dese little robot bastards wit' laser canons flyin' everywhere."

"So we went in and got her out, but Scott couldn't get the program to turn off."

"So de killer robots are still in dere."

The Professor blinked once at the sudden flood of information, staring at the two self-appointed spokesmen in surprise. Logan put his head in his hands and groaned, a sinking feeling seeping through his gut. LeBeau's "killer robots" sounded suspiciously familiar. If it was what he thought it was, the kids were damn lucky to have gotten out of it relatively unscathed.

The sound drew the students' attention to him for the first time, and all eyes turned to the corner where he sat.

"Sorry, Chuck," Logan apologized. "I think I know what they got into. Sounds like one of my workout programs." He turned to the kids, eyeing them again for damage, though there was little chance of his nose failing to catch something serious the first time around. "Were there lights, or was everything dark?"

"Blacker than Mystique's heart," Rogue supplied. She made a face. "I couldn't see a thing until Scott and the Cajun here started setting things on fire."

"On fire?" The Professor's eyebrows went up. "I think we had better go down to the control booth and take a look at the damage."

When the seven of them crowded into the little booth to peer down through the windows at the destruction below, Logan let out an involuntary whistle. As the Professor began tapping keys and pressing buttons, the lights in the Danger Room came back on, and the partially destroyed walls and piles of rubble below--they were modeled on some of the bombed out cities Logan had seen during the Second World War, actually--dissolved back into the floor. Jean, staring at the little heaps of slagged metal that marked the graves of combat droids, gasped faintly.

"You guys destroyed the place."

"Naw," Logan assured her, "they only took out a couple of droids." More than a couple, actually. A damned impressive number of droids, considering that none of the kids had his heightened smell and hearing to help them track the things in the dark. "Those things are easy to replace. Forge'll make us more for free, just for the fun of it." He leaned over the Professor's shoulder to inspect the computer log currently scrolling across one of the screens, Jean joining him to get her own peek at it.

"They ran the program with the safety protocols off?" she demanded, at the same moment that the Professor stopped paging down and turned his attention from the screen to give Logan a stern look.

"The Perfect Dark sequence won't run unless you take the safety protocols offline first," Logan explained. "Nobody other than me was ever supposed to tangle with it, and I don't need 'em."

"You guys could have been killed!" Jean continued.

"You don't have to tell us that," Kurt muttered darkly.

"Perhaps you could explain how the safety protocols came to be turned off?" the Professor ventured, turning his attention to the kids after shooting Logan a look that promised a long talk later, when the students weren't around. I thought I had said that no one was to remove the Danger Rooms safety features after Kurt's mishap this fall, he added, cementing the promise.

Logan had to stop himself from giving his head a violent shake, to dislodge the mental voice. He knew the Professor couldn't dress down another teacher with the kids present, but he hated being contacted telepathically. Sorry, Chuck, he thought as hard as he could, knowing that the Professor would pick it up, I really never thought that any of the students would get into it.

"Um, were not sure, sir," Scott said, answering the Professor's verbal question. "One of us must have done it by mistake, while we were trying to shut the combat skins program down."

Kurt stepped forward slightly and drew breath as if to speak, but LeBeau beat him to the punch.

"I t'ink dat was me," he said quickly, speaking over Kurt's attempt to answer. "Scott told me not to mess wit' de computers, but I wanted to help." He lowered his eyes to stare at the pack of cards he was shuffling from hand to hand. It looked like only part of a deck, which made Logan wonder where the rest had gone. Into those droids? "Guess I shouldn't've touched an unfamiliar computer. Desolé, mes amis." He gave Kurt a sharp nudge with his elbow, preventing any attempt at protest.

"Well, Remy," the Professor responded, "I assume you have learned your lesson." He wasn't fooled any more than Logan was. He looked straight at Scott and Kurt when he spoke. Once the two of them had gotten the message, he turned back to LeBeau. "On the other hand, now that you have been exposed to a sample of what the X-Men occasionally face, you may have second thoughts about joining us. I won't lie to you; it can at times be very dangerous, though our training facilities are not supposed to be part of that danger. I would understand perfectly if you changed your mind. Rest assured, if you did decide to leave, you would not have to return to your former lifestyle."

LeBeau appeared to think about this for a moment, glancing from the other students, to the Danger Room below, where demolished combat droids still smoldered slightly. Everyone was silent for a moment, awaiting his answer. Logan fully expected it to be "no." The kid was a con artist in the making if he'd ever seen one, and Logan hadn't missed the way his eyes lingered over valuable objects, the way he absent-mindedly pocketed any small object the mansions other residents left lying around--though he did generally return them once he noticed that he had done it. He might have good reflexes and a fair amount of control over his powers, but he didn't seem like the type to be a team player; someone so obviously used to relying only on himself generally put his own well being ahead of any other considerations. Logan wasn't exactly a team player himself, and could recognize the potential for trouble when he saw it in another.

"Rouge t'inks my eyes are neat-lookin'," LeBeau finally announced, smiling slightly. "So I t'ink mebbe I'll stay, if dat's okay wit' you."

Logan was very, very glad that he could not remember being seventeen.

"A commendable decision, Remy," the Professor said, then continued, addressing all of them, "I believe that once the other students return, we will have to have a meeting to discuss the proper use of the Danger Room." He looked directly at Scott when he said this, which made Logan wonder if he'd missed something. Scott Summers was probably the most responsible and hard working of all the students, though Jean gave him some stiff competition.

"About de Danger Room," LeBeau began, pointedly not looking at Rogue, who was blushing slightly, "could I start doin' some of dose combat sims wit' de others? Now dat I've sort of been initiated?" He grinned, eyes gleaming for a moment with a roguish light. "Might be fun. As long as I don't have to play wit' de same robots."

"I think that would be a good idea, Professor," Scott chimed in. "LeBeau--Remy has already had some basic combat training, I think, as well as some gymnastics or martial arts. I think we should pair him with Kurt for training. He can see in the dark too, and he's good at stealth stuff."

LeBeau looked slightly startled, and gave Scott an appraising glance. Logan would make book that he hadn't volunteered any of that information.

"I'll think about it," Logan replied, answering before the Professor could. The more aggressive combat training, after all, was his responsibility. The Professor worked with the kids' powers and did the guidance counselor thing, but he generally left the hand-to-hand-type stuff to the mansion's acknowledged expert. "You guys did good in there." He nodded toward the viewing windows and the Danger Room below. "It's really designed for a solitary fighter, but it's way above the level you've been training on."

The kids straightened their shoulders slightly at the praise, heads coming up.

"In fact, since you're all so good, I think I might need to work with you a bit more often. Save you from getting so bored on the weekends."

This did not get quite as enthusiastic a response, though no one actually voiced complaint.

The Professor picked up where Logan had left off. "I think that's an excellent idea. For now, though, I think you all had better return to your rooms and change. You look rather the worse for wear. Scott, I 'd like you to stay here for a moment."

The other students filed out, not quite stampeding the door in their haste to get away before some form of disciplinary action was threatened. Scott hung back, looking slightly nervous.

"Yes, Professor?" Scott asked.

"Scott, I know I've already asked you to do a lot this past week," the Professor said, "but afraid I'm not finished yet. I'm going to ask if you would be willing to introduce Remy to Coach Gardener on Monday. I think participating in an after school sport, like track, might keep him too busy to get into trouble after school."

Scott frowned slightly, not looking thrilled at the prospect. "If you want me to, Professor," he agreed. "He might not want to go out for a sport, though. I know he smokes." He looked horrified at himself as soon as he had spoken. "Forget I said that," he added quickly. "I'm sure he's going to quit. I'll talk to him about it."

"Please do," the Professor nodded, not quite a dismissal. "And Scott, after you leave here, please go see Dr. McCoy about that bruise on your arm."

As Scott was heading toward the door, he added, "And I thought you might like to know, I'm erasing your sims program."

Scott started, ears visibly reddening. "Professor-"

"You're not in trouble, and I'm not going to tell Ororo about it, but I will ask that you not make a replacement program. If you wish, you may work with me to design some more useful and, ah, appropriate sim programs. Your code was not bad, and I know that Kitty would appreciate having a companion in her lessons."

Scott looked torn between embarrassment and gratitude. "Thank you, Professor. I think I'll just, just go and see Dr. McCoy now." He all but fled the control room.

Logan turned to look at the Professor, eyebrows raised. "What was the program?"

The other man showed him, keying in a command sequence and calling up a string of specifications on one of the smaller screens.

"You're right," he agreed, as the Professor started the delete sequence. "I don't think 'Ro needs to know about this." He paused for a moment, eyeing the specs on the screen. "But can we keep the one of Marilyn Monroe?"

^_~

Not much closure, I know, but there is going to be a sequel, which is currently being co-written by me and Draqonelle.

Thank you to all of my reviewers.

Shiver: Thank you! Yes, Remy does seem more like the Brotherhood type than the X-Men type (probably why the X-Ev series has him working for Magneto). That's going to come up at some point during one of the sequels. If he acts a bit like the Remy from the old cartoon, it's probably because I used to love the old X-men series when I was a kid. I can still hum the old theme song.

Demeter: Thank you! Sorry you were disappointed by my version of Gambit (unless you meant the real X-Ev version, in which case I agree, a bit). I'm glad you're pleased with the Rogue/Gambit-ness, though. It's always nice to hear from a fellow shipper ^_~. (When she flirted with Bobby in the movie, I swear it caused me physical pain).

kaosda: Thank you! I'm glad you liked the first two chapters. I hope you liked this one as well.

Draq: Yeah, the "distracted from his studies" line was a classic--thanks for contributing it. And yes, the broken figurine at Hot Topic is based on the time I broke that little ninja figurine there. There are more flashback forthcoming in the later stuff (you've seen one of them already) and now that I've gotten the most urgent dirt track articles written and out of the way, I'll turn my attention to my half of the sequel.