redemption

pairings: Gambit x Harry and Scott x Jean

warnings: I'm not going to write Gambit's accent. maybe I can get a fellow x-men fan to change the sentences but my attempt doesn't look like anything. maybe a bit of angst in this but at least a gender confusion gni gni. oh yeah and a little mistake in age. gni gni. AU for X-men timeline.

Third pairing in the pairings galore for me, first ever x-men fanfic so again be nice.

"What is redemption?" Gambit wondered as Sinister mocked him again about not being good enough on his last job to have earned it.

Was redemption driving himself to the bone in payment of lives taken by him? Or was it to suffer for eternity as Sinisters toy? He subconsciously shivered at the terrifying idea.

Whatever it was it didn't make the fact that his team, the x-men, weren't coming for him any easier.

Maybe he shouldn't have kept his secrets as close to his chest as he had done. Especially Rogue and Wolverine had pried often enough. He should have taken them up on their offers.

Sure, they all had their sins but how could he tell them that he was once so out of control, so un-able to control his gift, his empathy particularly, that he killed with the rage of hundreds of mutants and hadn't even recognized his victims until every single one was… gone?

That once he came out of his rage he had sat there sobbing like a four year old until he was found by Sinister? That Sinister had taken him and blocked that god awful ability?

No, he could never fess up to that as Rogue had put it. Maybe he should let Wolverine get a hit in with those claws…

He, he'd really live up to his el Diablo Blanc name if he did that. Hell is the only place for killers.

No, it was too soon to die anyways. He still needed to find the boy. He couldn't save those young boys he had slaughtered in his blind anger but he could at least TRY and save this one. No-one deserved to be in HIS hands.

'Merde, the kid can't be more than 15,' he thought to himself. 'Soon this Gambit will be a true Diablo blanc. I'll kill to get that boy. These aren't people anyway. They know how Sinister is. I'll just have to try and get him to Xavier.'

"Oh, yes, you should be watching Sinister; soon I'll let the Diablo out," he spoke out loud to his cell before turning on the small cot and going to sleep. It was a couple of hours more before he could attempt an escape. Then he had to make his way back to the America's, with the added difficulty his lung infection posed. Maybe he should have tried Harder to convince Rogue to drop him on the ice and not in the freezing waters of the Arctic. He was after all nothing like Wolverine.

* With the 'boy' *

'Now how did I end up in THIS mess.' She thought to herself as she woke up to find herself in a damp, smelly and wet cell. Wasn't she at the ministry volunteering for some mission before getting handed a portkey? Oh right, they knew I was coming. The rumor of a leak wasn't just a rumor after all.

Checking the chains that held her hands behind her back, she resigned himself. 'Well that rules out the charging. Now let me see. Come on Harriet, FOCUS!' and with that the lock popped open… just not the one on his cuffs… 'eh?' she thought while looking at the door with wide eyes. Shrugging she got up and started running out the door.

Looking left and right she followed her nose to the right, and making a mad dash for the door at the end of the hall. Halfway there however a door a few foot ahead of her and on the right side suddenly blasted out, only to reveal a man with red eyes without pupils and brown hair in some weird spandex, like a uniform, and a trench-coat.

The stranger in turn looked over her jean clad and black turtle neck clad form.

"Bien, I was just getting you, come we are getting out."

Then this man turned and headed towards the same door Harriet had been headed.

Shrugging, Harriet simply followed. After all he was getting out too, so he couldn't be that bad.

half an hour later and a lot of guards with a headache or broken bones later the two were breathing fresh air.

"so who are you?" Harriet asked the man.

"I am gambit." he simply answered never breaking stride.

"yeah I gathered that" she rolled her eyes "but who are YOU?" lifting an eyebrow when he looked at her skeptically "what? didn't think I saw past the mask? I got a ton of my own." then wincing at the settling stiff ness in her hands she lifted hopeful eyes and asked "mind getting these cuffs off? it's getting mighty uncomfortable."

"you know for a boy you sound an awful lot like a girl." he said while cutting her arms free.

"oh I don't know, maybe because I AM a girl?" she said rolling her shoulders and taking a good look around. 'a frozen forest… great I didn't bring a coat.'

Gambit just grunted and started walking following some data a weird high tech device gave him.

he'd pulled it out of his belt, the x symbol there having been its folded form.

"So, where are we going again?"

"I never told you where we were going but if you must know. I'm handing you over to Xavier and then getting my butt out of there."

"I take it you don't like that Xavier person?"

"Oh I don't mind Xavier it the rest of the motley group that doesn't particularly likes me."

"hmm, I know the feeling."

A comfortable silence ensued until the sound of a plane engine came closer.

The duo looked at each other before they simultaneously dived for the cover of the nearest tree, the path they'd been following a bit ( a lot ) lacking in the cover department.

"That's the Blackbird." Gambit mumbled before having a coughing fit, the burning in his lungs unbearable as he coughed up a ball of fluids.

"SHIT! Gambit you all right?" Harriet asked. Gambit just waved her question away before spitting out the stuff in the snow around the tree. 'best not to swallow that I think.'

Harriet kept her eyes trained on the jet. Noticing the same X as Gambit had on the belly of the thing she asked "Hey are they your team mates or something?"

"Not anymore, Rogue made it clear they don't want me back."

"then why are they headed towards the complex we just escaped? I take it they aren't allied with whoever owns it?"

"Don't know about them heading there, but they aren't allied with Sinister. Come we will leave."

"isn't it possible that even one of them might be worried about you?" Harriet asked before standing and following him.

"Possible, yes. Likely? Non."

"Not likely some-one would be worried?" a new voice spoke up "tssk I'm disappointed in you Gambit. Is that any way to think of your partner?"

Harriet turned around to see a white haired, dark skinned woman in a white spandex suit, the same X gambit had on the shoulder.

Gambit sighed "Storm, those days are over. I told you to stay with the X-men."

"Xavier, agrees with me. Come with me Gambit." The Woman, now identified as Storm replied.

"Gambit…" Harriet spoke up hesitantly, fiddling with the remains of the chain links. "Maybe you should…"

"Don't tell me what I should or Shouldn't do girl!" Gambit spat, turning to face her and Storm.

A sudden shot rang out, the bullet piercing Gambit's already infected lungs.

Groaning he sunk forward still looking at the two girls.

A charged link of chain flying towards where a barrel could still be seen. It impacted and one of the men working at the compound was slung forward towards them from the resulting explosion.

But Gambit wasn't the one who shot it.

"Girl!" Gambit gasped, horrified at the thought that another person was cursed with his power.

"A properly utilized power will never be a curse, nor are we a curse." Harriet spoke up, as if hearing his thought. "We may be mutants, but we are not unnatural, nor is it possible to 'cure' us. There is nothing TO cure." She turned to face the rest of the newly arrived X-men. "neither is it right for one mutant to judge another mutant for what he had to do to survive." More men from the compound could be heard approaching. Their shouting clear against the crisp air.

Gambit struggled to his feet, one hand covering the hole on his front.

His other hand grasping some of his playing cards.

"yet there is no denying some powers are a curse upon their owner." He gasped before he launched some card at a couple of men trying to flank the group.

Cyclops spoke up for the first time "Am I to assume you are Sherpa from the UK?"

"And what if I am?" Harriet asked before turning to Gambit and laying a hand on the entry wound in his back, a silvery glow could be seen by the two of them, then she removed her hand and the wound was mended.

"kinetic energy can more than explode things." She whispered to Gambit, "Keep your hand there, let them sweat."

"the professor told us to take you to the Manor."

"and what if I don't go?" She answered before turning Gambit to the side of the path and pulling him along. She sat him down and made a show of binding the two wounds with bandages from the kit Jean had tossed her.

Cyclops stood blustering to the side, not knowing what to say.

Eventually Storm took pity and said "what Cyclops oh so elegantly put meant to say is that you've been invited to rest for a bit at the manor."

"hmm I don't know." Harriet said, "what do you say Gambit? Shall we accept a ride to this manor of theirs?"

Gambit looked at her as if she was mad before laughing. "Bien, I think I'll keep you Ma petite."