Remy LeBeau, better known as Gambit, whistled to himself, haphazardly casting cards in every direction as he sauntered to the middle of the complex he was robbing. This had actually turned out to be a lot more fun than he had first expected it to be. There were jobs that required stealth, which he was good at, but they made his head hurt, and there were jobs that required flamboyancy. Those were the jobs he excelled at.

There were the hectic sounds of explosions behind him and he broke off his whistling to smirk. So much trouble over one little disk? Not that it mattered to Remy, he liked money.

And if he was getting paid to get a disk, he'd get the disk. Simple.

He charged another card in his hand and casually tossed it over his shoulder as he finally reached his destination. A steel and wire box set to ring an alarm at the slightest change in external pressure or temperature.

Remy smiled. He had just the cure for that box, and it came in the for of an exploding 7 of spades.

He held up the card and charged it lightly, just enough to get the box open, and then filched the disk from inside, not really caring what was on it.

"Looking for something, bub?" a guttural voice growled from behind him.

"Well, Gambit was lookin' for a little company," Remy smiled as he turned to face the familiar voice.

Only the short hairy man wasn't alone this time. There was another, taller man to his left with an odd visor strapped over his eyes; a tall African woman with white hair; a short little girl with her brunette hair done up in three different tresses on the back of her head; a furry blue… thing…; a boy made of ice; and another girl with a stripe of white in her auburn hair and covered from head to toe.

His eyes passed quickly over all of the new people, quickly summing them up, but stayed on the last girl a moment longer then he would have liked them too. He also noticed how Wolverine was leaning a little bit closer to the girl with the white stripe protectively.

"What's de matter homme? You don't think you can take Gambit on ye onesies?" He smirked, slipping the rest of his cards out of his pocket and fanning them out.

"Just wanted to make sure I had enough to repay a favor you did for me the last time we saw each other." Wolverine growled.

"Was that the one where I left you to hold your own in a room full of mutant hunting robots or the one where I blew up half of Genosha." Remy mocked. "Gambit's memory gets a little fuzzy."

With a feral yell, wolverine jumped at him, but Remy was ready and made sure Wolverine was side tracked by the Jack of Clubs and a 9 of Hearts.

He stealthily avoided a bright red beam shot out of the taller man's visor that Remy was sure would have hurt very much as decided to neutralize the problem by snatching the visor off of the man's face.

The woman with the white hair suddenly had eyes that matched and Remy found himself dodging lightning bolts.

He smiled as he ducked out of the way of another weather phenomena and dodged an ice shard that had been aimed for the back of his head. This was plenty more fun then he thought he'd have when he had walked into here.

He tossed four cards at the weather witch and the ice boy each and offhandedly avoided a blow from the furry man before throwing a few cards in his direction as well.

The girl with the white stripe had stayed immobile up until this point, watching, waiting. But suddenly she took off at a run for the unconscious bodies of the ice boy and the weather witch.

"Not so fast, chérie." Remy laughed as he caught her arm and spun her around into his grasp. "Gambit t'inks you might be very valuable to his escape plan."

"Yeah, right, Swamp Rat." She snarled at him and he was shocked by her southern accent… it was… perfect. "I don' think that you're goin' to be getting that far." She indicated the rising X-men.

"Minor set back." He assured her, using the arm he had captured to spin her in his grasps so that she was facing the X-men that were now standing and with his other hand, he charged a card next to her. "I'm thinkin' the homme be backing up now, non?" Remy locked his red and black eyes with Wolverine's.

The girl struggled in his grasp and he tightened his hold against her, loving the feel of her closer to him.

"Rogue," Wolverine called out and the girl in Remy's hold stopped moving for a moment. They seemed to communicate something with their eyes, but the conversation ended with the girl –Rogue- shaking her head 'no'.

"Gambit don' like to be left out of the loop, chérie." Gambit informed Rogue. "What just happened?"

Rogue smiled. "Perceptive, aren't ya?"

"Part of the job." Remy said, keeping his grip on her tight and his vigilance on the other X-men wary.

"Just let her go, bub, and no one gets hurt." Wolverine grumbled.

"Gambit thinks not mon ami." The card in his hand glowed magenta furiously.

"Don't say I didn't warn you." Wolverine smirked.

"Wha-." Remy began to question the hairy man but Rogue made a move.

Remy tried to get a good grip on her again, but she was fast.

She dropped to the floor and kicked out his feet from underneath him. Remy hit the ground with a grunt and though his ego took a blow, his good humor expanded beyond a reasonable size when he glanced at the position Rogue had had to crouch to when she had kicked his feet out from underneath him.

He laughed his throaty chuckle as he responded to her blow by tackling her to the ground; the card that had been in his hand blew up and provided a good distraction for the rest of the X-men.

She groaned slightly when she hit the ground and then glared up at Remy with impossibly green eyes.

"And Gambit finds himself in the company of a very feisty femme." He laughed. "And you know, he thought today would be a waste when he woke up dis mornin'"

"I bet." Rogue growled with her drawled accent and Remy felt himself melt slightly on the inside.

He laughed again throatily as she tried to kick him off of her.

"Why so tense chérie," He teased. "Ye don' like Gambit being this close to ye? Because he knows for fact that you would be de only femme who hasn't."

She barked a laugh back at him. "Hmm. Sounds like someone's a little full of himself."

"You wound me chérie," Remy turned down his lips in mock sadness.

She actually laughed this time, and it was a beautiful bell-like sound. "If only that had worked when I was actually trying to wound you."

"Does that mean you going to stop trying to make Gambit give up his life of crime and womanizing," Remy smirked. "Because he don't know how he feels about that."

"Hmm." Rogue pretended to contemplate this. "No." She said bluntly and tried to kick him in a very tender place.

"Watch it, chérie," Remy backed away quickly at this new threat. "You don't want to be hurtin' any of that, do you?"

"Why is that?" Rogue snorted with annoyance.

Remy waggled his eyebrows.

Anger sparked in her emerald eyes and she aimed a fist at him.

Remy laughed as he jumped out of her way, having fun winding her up.

He collided with something solid and growling.

Wolverine grabbed him by the front of his trench coat and pulled him forward so that hie red and black eyes were level with Wolverine's.

"Bonjour, mon ami." Gambit gave Wolverine a half a smile.

Wolverine growled a pinned him against a wall. "If I ever see you look at her like that again, I will cut you into pieces so small that the MRD wouldn't be able to find you if we gave them a map. Understood?" The snarl worked its way to Remy with the intended result of fear.

Remy covered it up with a smile and a charged card.

Everyone coughed and spluttered at the Cajun's dirty trick as he slipped out of Wolverine's grasp. As the smoke cleared Remy stood close to the exit, all eyes on him.

"Would that be this look, mon ami?" Remy goaded as he gave Rogue a kiss on the back of her gloved hand and then shot her a seductive look before disappearing, his smile sticking in Rogue's mind like the Cheshire Cat.

The rest of the X-men took off after the infamous thief, but Rogue sat down on the dusty ground, stunned. The little kiss on the back of her hand made her feel tingly, the look he had given her made her face heat up with embarrassment.

She stared at the door he had just disappeared out of, a small smile slid across her lips.