Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first thing Remy noticed was the sound.

Drip.
Drip.
Drip.

Somewhere in the half-dark, water fell from a cracked pipe, every drop hitting the stone floor with cruel precision. The sound kept time with his heartbeat - too loud, too fast, too desperate.

His head throbbed. His hands were bound, wrists bruised raw from trying to break the cuffs. When he lifted his head, pain tore through his skull, but he forced his eyes open anyway.

The cell was small. Metal walls stained with rust, a faint green glow coming from a single panel high above. The air smelled like damp concrete and iron. And blood.

“Remy…?”

The voice broke him.

Rogue was slumped against the opposite wall, her hair sticking to her forehead in sweaty strands, the white streak dulled and tangled. Her gloved hand was pressed to her stomach, and when she moved, he saw the tremor in her fingers.

And in her arms, wrapped in her jacket, was Oliver.

“Merde…” His voice cracked, and he half-fell forward before the cuffs yanked him back. “Chère, non, non. What did they do?”

She looked up at him, eyes glassy and unfocused. “They… they injected us, sugah.” Her voice was a whisper now, the Southern lilt weak as a dying flame. “Something in the air… I- I can feel it burnin’ through me.”

Remy’s mind went white.

Olivier whimpered - that small, high-pitched, innocent sound - and the world snapped back into focus. Remy crawled toward them on his knees, the cuffs scraping, chains clanging. He reached her, barely.

Rogue shifted, pressing the baby closer to her chest. “He’s burning up,” she said. “They did somethin’ to him too.”

Remy’s eyes darted to the steel door across the cell. Nothing but silence beyond it. Then, slowly, he searched his pockets, his coat- gone. They’d taken everything except the necklace hidden under his shirt. He pulled it free - a silver capsule no bigger than a thumb.

The antidote. One dose. Henri’s voice came back to him from some long-ago briefing: “It’ll neutralize the toxin, but it only works once. After that… c’est fini.”

One dose.

Rogue’s eyes fell on it too. He saw the recognition dawn there - and the dread that followed.

“Oh, God…” she whispered. “You can’t... Remy...”

“Shhh.” His fingers brushed her cheek, trembling. “Don’t talk like dat, chère. Don’t even say it.”

But she did. “There’s only one.”

Remy clenched the capsule in his fist, like maybe he could crush the choice out of existence. “I’ll find another. I’ll make them pay, get more...”

“Look at me.” Her voice was still soft, but that steel was there - that unbreakable Rogue steel that had held through every battle, every heartbreak. “You ain’t gettin’ out of this cell. Not yet. You know that.”

He met her eyes - and saw the truth there.

Rogue leaned back against the wall, her breaths shallow. Olivier stirred weakly in her arms, his little hand reaching out, clutching at her shirt. Remy reached out too, touched his son’s fingers, those tiny perfect fingers that had once wrapped around his thumb like they’d known each other for lifetimes.

The baby’s skin was hot. Too hot.

“Remy,” Rogue whispered. “Listen to me. You give it to him.”

He froze. “No.”

“Please.” Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes, her voice breaking with the weight of the word. “He’s just a baby.”

“I said no!” The shout echoed through the cell, raw and furious and terrified. He pressed his forehead to hers, their breaths mingling. “Don’t you ask me dat. Don’t you dare ask me dat.”

“Remy...”

“You hear me, Anna?” His voice dropped to a whisper, rough and desperate. “Don’t make me choose.”

She gave a sound between a sob and a laugh. “You already are.”

He didn’t remember moving, only that he was suddenly holding both of them, his chain pulling taut, his whole body shaking. He kissed her hair, her temple, her lips - frantic, reverent, like he could pour life back into her through sheer will.

“I’ll fix this,” he murmured against her skin. “I swear, I’ll fix this.”

“You always say that.”

“And I always do.”

“Not this time, Cajun,” she breathed. “Not if you don’t decide soon.”

The dripping went on - steady, merciless. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Olivier whimpered again, then quieted, his little chest rising too slowly.

Remy looked at the capsule. At Rogue. At their son.

Every heartbeat was a countdown now.
And he was out of time.

Chapter Text

Remy didn’t notice the tears until one slid into the corner of his mouth, tasting of salt and dust.

He hated that sound - the quiet. It wasn’t real silence. It was a thing alive, crawling under his skin. The cell hummed with it, the air itself pressing down on him, waiting to see what he’d do.

He turned the capsule over in his palm. The metal gleamed faintly in the half-light, like a cruel joke - salvation small enough to lose between his fingers.

“Remy” Rogue whispered again. She sounded further away this time.

He crawled closer, every movement stiff and pained. He reached for her face, brushed the hair from her eyes. Her skin was damp and cold at once - wrong. “Stay with me, chère. Don’t you close your eyes. Don’t you dare.”

Her lips curved, faintly. “Still bossy.”

He choked out a laugh that broke halfway through. “You love me dat way.”

“Always.”

He looked down at their son. Olivier’s breathing was shallow, tiny fingers twitching against Rogue’s glove. There was a flush high on his cheeks - fever. Remy’s thumb trembled as he traced a circle over the back of that small hand. “He’s so hot,” he murmured. “It’s spreadin’ too fast.”

Rogue closed her eyes for a moment, just breathing. When she opened them again, they were clearer. “You know what to do.”

He shook his head violently. “Non. Don’t say dat again.”

“Remy...”

“I can’t lose you.” He pressed his forehead to hers again, shaking with it. “I already lost too much. Too many. You think I can live in a world dat don’t got you in it? I can’t.”

Her smile broke his heart. “You’ll have him. You’ll have our boy. He needs you more than I do.”

“You think I can raise him without you? You think I can even look at him and not see you?” His voice cracked. “You’re the only reason I ever thought I could be any kinda father, Rogue. Don’t take that away from me.”

Something flickered behind her eyes - pain, and love, and a terrible knowing. “If you don’t… if you don’t save him, Remy, I’ll never forgive you. Not even from wherever I end up.”

He swallowed hard, staring at her. She meant it. God help him, she meant it.

“Anna…” he whispered her real name like prayer and curse all at once. “Mon amour, don’t make me bury you.”

“You won’t have to,” she said softly. “You’ll just have to remember.”

He stared at the capsule again. It seemed to pulse in his hand - a heartbeat, a bomb, everything he loved reduced to one impossible decision.

He could hear Henri in his head again, from years ago - some argument in a dark hallway in New Orleans.
“You always think you can play both sides, frère. But one day, you’ll have to choose what you can’t fix.”

Now he understood.

He pressed his thumb to the capsule’s trigger. It clicked open, the clear vial inside shimmering faintly. Enough for one dose.

Olivier whimpered again, weaker now. That sound tore through him more than any blade ever could.

“Give it to him,” Rogue breathed. “Please, sugah.”

He wanted to scream. He wanted to smash the vial against the wall, let them all die together, no choices, no blame. But his hand wouldn’t obey. It trembled, hovering over their son.

“Remy…”

Her voice - that voice - pulled him back from the edge. He met her eyes one last time. They were full of love, fierce and endless, even as they dulled with pain.

He couldn’t speak. He just nodded once, jerky and broken.

He drew Oliver into his arms, as gently as his shaking hands would allow. The child whimpered at the movement, face hot and wet against Remy’s neck.

“It’s okay, p’tit,” he whispered. “Papa’s here. Papa’s got you.”

He pressed the vial to Olivier’s skin, pushed the needle in, injected the antidote. The baby cried weakly, then quieted. Rogue reached out, her gloved hand trembling, and touched the child’s cheek.

“That’s it,” she whispered. “That’s our boy.”

Remy looked up at her, the light already fading from her eyes, and something in him broke clean in two.

“Anna, please,” he rasped. “Hold on, please. Just a little longer. Let me find somethin’. Let me-”

“Too late for me,” she murmured. “But not for him. Don’t waste that.”

He caught her hand, held it to his lips. “You can’t- you can’t do this. You promised me forever.”

“I still mean it” she said faintly. “Forever’s just shorter than we thought.”

He kissed her fingertips, one by one. “I love you, Rogue. Always have. Always will.”

“Love you more,” she whispered, and smiled the way she had the first night he’d kissed her - a little shy, a little dangerous, completely hers. “Now be good, Remy LeBeau. For our son.”

Her hand went slack in his.
The drip slowed.
And the silence became absolute.

Remy didn’t move for a long time. He sat there, holding her hand in one arm and Olivier in the other, the antidote’s empty vial clattering to the floor. His heart had forgotten how to beat.

Then, quietly, the child stirred. His breathing had steadied. The fever broke. He sighed, a small, contented sound, and slept.

Remy pressed his lips to the boy’s hair and let the first sob escape, silent and violent, tearing through his chest.

Above him, somewhere beyond the cell door, someone laughed. A voice he recognized - cold, male, cruelly amused.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” The intercom crackled to life. “Love always makes the best experiment.”

Remy lifted his head, eyes burning red in the dim light.

“Mister Sinister,” he said, his voice low and deadly. “You just signed your death warrant, mon ami.”

Chapter Text

For a long time Remy didn’t know how to breathe.

He sat there, unmoving, the world pressed flat around him - walls, air, everything silent except the faint sound of Olivier’s small breaths.
The quiet was wrong. Too heavy.

He touched Rogue shoulder. Still warm. She wasn’t gone. Not yet.
The antidote might have slowed the poison in Olivier’s blood but there had to be something left he could do for her too.

He drew in a ragged breath and whispered “I’m gonna get you out, chère. Both of you.”

The words steadied him. They gave shape to hope, even when hope was a fool’s trade.

Remy laid Olivier carefully against Rogue’s chest and rose, chains scraping the floor. He tested the cuffs again. Thick metal, a complex lock, solid craftsmanship. Impossible to escape for most people. But not for him. Sinister’s mistake was thinking despair made men weak. Remy LeBeau had lived his whole life surviving impossible locks.

He twisted his wrists, feeling the edges bite into his skin, and reached for the sliver of wire still hidden in his sleeve seam. His last trick.
It was small as a whisper, almost invisible, but to him it was salvation.

“Papa?” The tiny voice startled him, barely a murmur from Olivier, half-awake.
“I’m here, p’tit,” Remy answered softly. “Stay quiet for Papa, okay? We goin’ home soon.”

He smiled, even though his hands shook. It helped him keep breathing.

Minutes stretched thin as he worked. Each click of metal was a heartbeat closer to freedom. When the last one gave way, the sound was the sweetest thing he’d ever heard.

He knelt beside Rogue again. Her pulse was faint, her skin pale, but she was still with him. He brushed her hair back and whispered, “You fightin’, I know you are. You always do.”

From somewhere beyond the door came a heavy clang - boots, maybe two guards changing shift. Remy froze, listening. The faint hum of electronics followed. Security grid. The layout came to him like blueprints unfolding behind his eyes. He’d escaped worse.

He wrapped his coat around Rogue and the baby, lifted them both as gently as he could. “Almost there, mon cœur” he breathed. “Hold on for me.”

He slipped the broken cuff into the lock panel and charged it, a pulse of kinetic energy flickering pink. Sparks jumped. The smell of burning metal filled the air.
The door hissed open.

Corridors stretched ahead, lined in steel and blue light. Cameras watched, but Gambit’s eyes burned brighter. He threw a card at the nearest lens - a flash, a soft explosion, and darkness fell.

He moved quickly, barefoot, every sound measured. Rogue stirred once against him, a soft sigh escaping her lips. He almost stopped - just to look, to make sure - but he couldn’t. Not yet.

Alarms began somewhere far off, distant enough to hope. He ducked into a service tunnel, breathing hard. The air was cleaner here, colder.
Olivier whimpered and Remy kissed the top of his son’s head. “Almost there, mon p’tit ange. Just a little more.”

Rogue’s gloved hand brushed his chest, barely moving. Her voice came so faint he thought he imagined it. “Remy…?”

“I’m here,” he whispered fiercely. “You’re safe. I got you.”

Her lashes fluttered, her mouth forming something like a smile. “Knew… you would.”

Then the tunnel shook. A low mechanical groan, a security door sealing behind them. Remy swore under his breath. Sinister would be watching again soon.

He ducked through another hatch, down a narrow stairway that stank of oil. Somewhere below there had to be air vents, a maintenance lift, something. Anything.

And there - a red emergency light pulsing above an old freight door. He kicked the panel loose and saw it: a ladder leading up, faint moonlight beyond the grate.

Freedom.

Remy balanced Rogue against his shoulder, cradling Oliver tight. He climbed, muscles screaming, mind locked on her heartbeat against his neck.
It was there. Still there.

When they reached the grate, he forced it open and pulled them into the night. Cold air hit his face. Sharp, clean, alive. He lay back on the ground, Rogue in his arms, Olivier between them, staring at the slice of sky above. Stars, scattered like cards mid-throw.

“See dat, chère?” he murmured. “We made it. You just rest now, okay? I’ll find help.”

Her hand twitched in his, faint as breath.

He smiled through tears he didn’t bother to hide. “Told you, ma belle. I always fix it.”

Below them, alarms still screamed. Somewhere in the depths, Sinister would be furious.

But up here, in the cold wind, Remy held on to the one thing the man could never cage - the wild, burning love that refused to die.

Chapter Text

The night swallowed them whole.
Wind whipped through the broken trees on the ridge, carrying the scent of rain and metal.

Remy staggered down the slope with Rogue held against his chest and Olivier bundled close to her. Each step jarred his ribs. Each breath cut deeper. He couldn’t stop. Not yet. Not until he saw real light. The kind that means they’re safe.

“Stay with me, chère” he whispered, words more prayer than sound. “Almost there, I promise.”

Her head rested against his shoulder. A whisper of warmth against the cold. The poison had slowed her heart but not her will. He could feel that stubborn life still fighting under her skin. That was Rogue - always fighting, even when the world said no.

He reached a clearing where the moon pooled silver across a rusted fence. On the other side: an old road, and maybe, if luck hadn’t finally run out, people.

Remy shifted them carefully to one arm, took the fence with the other and sent a pulse of energy into the lock. The metal flared, hissed and gave way. He slipped through, stumbling to his knees on the gravel.

Olivier whimpered again. A small, tired sound. The boy’s fever was gone but his tiny hand clutched at Remy’s shirt as if he somehow knew what his father was holding together with nothing but will.

“Shhh, mon ange” Remy murmured. “We safe now. Gonna find help.”

A flicker of light appeared far down the road - headlights. A truck, old and slow. Remy stepped out, waving one arm, ready to drop to his knees if he had to.

The truck screeched to a stop. A man leaned out the window, wide-eyed.
“Hey! You all right?”

“Need a hospital” Remy gasped. “Now.”

He didn’t remember much after that. Just hands lifting Rogue from his arms, Olivier’s cry, the blur of sirens and white light.

___

When he woke, everything smelled of antiseptic and ozone. A hospital. Maybe a field clinic. Machines hummed nearby.

He sat up fast. “Rogue...?”

“She’s here.” A woman in blue scrubs pointed to the next bed. “You brought her in just in time.”

Rogue lay there, pale but breathing steady, the slow rhythm of a heart monitor keeping count. Someone had wrapped a thermal blanket around her. There was a faint blush in her cheeks now - a color he’d thought he’d never see again.

Remy pressed a hand over his face. A sound escaping him that was half a laugh, half a sob. “Merci, bon Dieu…”

The nurse smiled. “Your little boy’s sleeping in the next room. He’s fine.”

Remy exhaled shakily. The world tilted back into place, uneven but solid.

He took Rogue’s hand, gloved and warm beneath his fingers. “You scared me, belle. You always do.”

Her eyelids fluttered. “Wouldn’t be me otherwise,” she murmured, voice weak but hers.

He leaned closer, forehead against hers. “You rest. I’ll handle everythin’.”

“You always say that,” she whispered, smiling faintly.

“And this time, I mean it.”

He stayed like that until dawn bled into the room. Watching her breathe, counting every rise and fall of her chest as if keeping time might hold the world together.

When sunlight finally touched her face, she stirred again, eyes opening slow and soft. “We out?”

“We out” he said. “Sinister’s base is gone. You, me, and Oli - that’s all that matters.”

She looked at him, tired but alive, and reached for his hand. “Then let’s go home.”

___

Hours later, when the sun was high and the road back to Louisiana stretched ahead, Remy drove one-handed, Rogue resting against him, Oliver asleep in her lap. The air through the window smelled of salt and magnolia. It smelled like home.

He thought of what Sinister had said in that dark cell. "Love makes the best experiment".

Remy smiled bitterly to himself. Sinister had never understood it.
Love wasn’t an experiment. It was survival.

He reached over, brushed Rogue’s hair from her face, and whispered, “Told you, chère. I fix everythin’ eventually.”

She smiled, eyes half-closed, and whispered back, “Then don’t ever stop.”

And for the first time in a long while, Remy LeBeau believed he wouldn’t.

Chapter Text

The house smelled faintly of magnolias and motor oil.
Remy never could get that scent out of the floorboards, no matter how many candles Rogue burned. She claimed it was part of the charm. He’d come to agree.

It had been two weeks since they’d left the hospital. The doctors called it a miracle. Remy called it Rogue.

She was on the porch now, sunlight filtering through the lace of her hair, a shawl draped over her shoulders. Olivier slept in a bassinet at her feet, one small hand curled into a fist against his blanket. The world had gone soft again - not safe, but soft.

Remy stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms crossed, watching her. She felt him there - she always did - and turned with that slow, knowing smile that had undone him since the first time she used it.

“Y’gonna just stare, or you plannin’ to join us, Cajun?” she teased.

He stepped onto the porch, sat beside her, let the wooden swing creak to life under their weight. “A man allowed to admire what he fought for, non?”

She snorted, but leaned into his shoulder. “You didn’t fight, Remy. You carried.”

He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her closer. “Felt like fightin’ to me.”

They rocked in silence for a while. Cicadas buzzed somewhere down the street and a vendor shouted about fresh beignets. The ordinary noises of home. Ordinary enough to make the last month feel almost like a fever dream.

Almost.

When Rogue finally spoke, her voice was quiet. “I remember everythin’. The cell, the antidote. You givin’ it to Oli.”
Her hand tightened around his. “You shouldn’t have had to make that call.”

He stared out at the street. “Ain’t a day I don’t think about it. But if I had to again…” He exhaled. “I’d still save him. ’Cause I know you’d have found your way back to me no matter what.”

She turned, eyes glinting like green glass in sunlight. “You think so?”

“I know so. You too stubborn to let go.”

Her laugh was soft and shaky. “Guess that’s true.”

Remy reached up, brushed a thumb over the white streak at her temple. “You scared me worse than anythin’ Sinister could’ve done.”

She looked at him for a long moment then said, “You still blamin’ yourself?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

Rogue shifted, pressing her palm against his chest. “Then stop. You gave our boy a future. You gave me one too. Maybe not the way you wanted but you did.”

He caught her hand and kissed it. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Good thing I never cared much for fair trades” she said, and the corners of her mouth curved again.

They stayed like that. The swing creaking gently, Olivier sighing in his sleep. The afternoon stretched lazy and golden, the kind of day you want to live in forever.

After a while Remy said “Been thinkin’. Maybe we leave for a while. Take Oli to the coast. Just us. No missions, no experiments, no poison.”

Rogue tilted her head against his shoulder. “That sounds like heaven.”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Let’s go find us some.”

The baby stirred making a small, drowsy sound and Rogue leaned down to adjust the blanket. “Look at him” she whispered. “He’s got your smile.”

“Poor kid” Remy said grinning. “World ain’t ready for two LeBeaus with charm.”

“World’ll manage” she said brushing her lips against his cheek. “Long as we stay together.”

He turned toward her, caught her kiss - slow, deep, full of everything they hadn’t had words for in that cold cell.

When they broke apart, Rogue’s eyes shimmered. “We made it.”

Remy glanced at Olivier then back to her. “Non, chère. You made it. I just followed your light.”

She laughed softly, tucked her head under his chin and together they watched the sun sink over horizon - the sky painted red and gold.

He tightened his arm around Rogue, feeling her heartbeat steady against his ribs.

Somewhere far away, Sinister was waiting for the right moment to rise again. For now they were safe.