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There it is, as a constant in her life nowadays. The sensation of trying and trying, but to fall at the last hurdle. The things she fought tooth and nail for, dissolving in the mist, and again she stands empty-handed.
But, is she?
Her decision to follow Logan to Westchester is not something she’s ever doubted, honestly. Utopia is not for her - she may not be sure of what she wants, but sure it isn’t to be a soldier. She’s fed up with being a soldier. Too bad the School feels so much like a battlefield, and she can’t help but wonder why she always feels she’s falling short. Falling short on what, one would ask, if her powers are under control, if her life is now supposed to be on track, and she’s supposed to, you know, finally be able to get her act together, to grow the hell up?
So much for keeping Legacy’s memories, she thinks. All that pain, all that suffering, all those fleeting moments of a lost world she wanted to honor somehow, but none of them could ever hand her a hint of how to navigate this one, the real world she lives in. The feeling of inadequacy, trying to appease people so much ‘larger than life’ while trying not to be an inconvenience, not to make mistakes, and yet the mistakes come by the dozens - because all of them, from Scott to Logan and to Erik and everyone in between, believe she’s expected to know exactly how to act, what to say, what to do. And if - and only if - she complies, she’ll be acknowledged. And Erik…
The supposed ‘long-term relationship’ they were to have¹. She came to Westchester and he said he would visit, right? She didn’t get a single call, until Erik came to give her a grand speech about how he wanted her in his life - given his conditions and circumstances were met, of course. Since they won’t, with another sensible discourse he kisses her goodbye and walks out of her life² as if it - them - didn’t even matter at the end of his day. So noble of him, of course, so she’s expected to be just as noble, right?
The worst of all is that, in retrospect, she did think it was noble of him. So mature. All she felt then, however, was a mix of frustration, emptiness and relief - and that’s where she stands now. Minus the relief.
When the hell did her life become this sad?
And it’s not like she could indulge in a pity-party over her failed choices, is it? Because when it comes to her love life, all she’s heard from everyone in here was ‘call your boyfriend’. The same one who didn’t even call her in the first place. ‘Let your pride aside’³, is what they said. ‘Get your act together, you brought this on yourself’, is the quiet part they don’t say out loud.
The worst of it? The one person who would actually listen to her is the one she can’t talk to about her current misfortunes.
It’s been a couple months since she last heard from him, anyway. He’s away, lending a helping hand to Laura⁴, is what she’s told, but nothing else. The grapevine of x-gossip has shut down any information about Remy LeBeau other than the ‘official version’. And it has never spared her details about Remy’s prolific love life, before and after her. She has an inkling as to why, of course. The stares, whispers and snickers she got when she came here and her then boyfriend didn’t, were solid clues of where their loyalties lie in this particular matter. Which is ironic, but hardly the first time. She’s not particularly distraught by it, though. She’s got a thick skin for that, or she’d never make it past her first year as a X-man.
She sees Ororo landing on the roof. She came to visit from Utopia, greeted her and all, stated how good it was to see her again, but didn’t say a single word about her and Erik’s situation. Once, there was a time when Ororo would be a safe space for her to unload her burdens, and she misses it, she really does. And despite knowing why Ororo hasn’t offered a shoulder for her to cry on about those particular misfortunes, what she doesn’t know is what possesses her to go to the attic - Ororo’s old loft. Yet she walks the stairs, step by step, remembering the old days of the school that brought her in when no one else would, seeking some good old tender loving care, but as she goes past the hallway she listens to Ororo’s voice. She’s on the phone.
Honest to god, her intentions were to gently knock and let Ororo know she’s there, waiting. But they go through the window at the minute she listens to Remy’s name in her voice. Instead, she locks into place, and listen.
“...Of course I want all the details. It’s a big one. All suited up and in your convertible⁵, of course it's a big one!” She laughs. “I had to learn about it through Jubilee, Remy. Jubilee, and you’re supposed to be my brother.” Ororo is mock-serious, but still, her voice is giddy. “All the details are the only way you’ll ever get to earn my forgiveness”. Then comes a long silence, often interrupted by her low, happy hum.
She knows what this is. This is a date. Remy is telling Ororo about a date.
Her mind races around what she knows about Remy’s flings after their break-up. Nothing of importance, besides Joanna. Which, come to think of it, also is bound to go nowhere. She knows it.
Ororo knows it, too.
She wouldn’t be so worked up about a date with Joanna.
A nasty, nasty mix of dismay, anger, betrayal and white-hot jealousy invades her. She’s no fool, of course; she knows it has no reason to be. Nonetheless, it’s there, no matter how much her rational self reiterates that she has no plausible ground to feel this way. All her self-preservation instincts beg her to turn tail and leave, but she’s glued into spot.
“Now listen, Remy. Listen. It’s a good thing. It is,” Ororo insists, and yet another moment of silence follows. “And you've got to promise me you’re not going to ruin it by turning into “Gambit” so you’ll spook her away. Ah- Yes, Remy LeBeau, you heard me. This is your favorite way to sabotage yourself and you know it.” There comes a moment’s pause where she could kill to know what Remy’s saying. A part of her brain whines, hysterically, as to why Isn’t Ororo talking to Remy on speaker. “Yes, I get it. I do. The thing is, you are afraid, Padnat.” Another pause. “Yes, Remy. You are afraid. Because this is something that might actually go somewhere. Somewhere good. For real. And you’re scared because it might do so without her asking you to jump through hoops for her amusement. And you deserve this, my friend. You deserve someone who not only loves you, but commit to you.”
This, said in Ororo’s voice, sends her down the hallway and back to the stairs, eyes veiled in angry tears. Because, really, how dare she? How dare she doubt her love for Remy?
‘She’s not doubting you love for him, she’s doubting your ability to commit to him.’ her own mind replies. ‘Is she wrong?’
Shut up, she mutters to herself, letting cold, hard anger wash over her. How was that again? Home and harbor? Final destination? So much for all the pretty words, she fumes, blinking back tears as she stomps away from the mansion.
“Wow, easy, don’t throttle the popsicle.” She snaps her head towards Bobby, to whom she almost bumps into. “What’s into you to almost run me over like that?”
Nothing, is what she wants to say - yell, actually, but that’s not what comes out of her mouth.
“You know.” She hisses, finger raised at Bobby's face. “Who Remy’s datin’?”
“How can I possibly keep up with half of the city’s population?” He shrugs, but she clocks his defensiveness. “I have good sources, but come on.”
“Don’t give me this crap, Bobby.” She all but snarls. “He’s datin’ someone. An’ it ain’t Joanna either. Who is it?”
“Wait a sec,” Bobby frowns. “Are you jealous of him?”
“Well,” She hotly replies. “What if I am?”
“Then you’re not making sense." Bobby deadpans. "You ended things with him, didn’t you? Didn’t you think he’d find someone else, too? Someone nice?”
“I…” Her voice catches in her throat, a mix of anger, hurt and powerlessness. “And who is this nice person, huh? Such a nice person, it must be?”
“Why would you think Cece is not a nice person-⁶... Oh," Bobby grimaces. “Oh shit. Shouldn’t have said that.”
'Someone nice,' Bobby said. It hits her like a ton of bricks, and suddenly she can see why Ororo is so invested.
When she learned about Remy and Joanna, she managed to keep her cool. It stung, of course, and it's not that Joanna isn't a nice person, but… She and Remy wouldn’t click past a fling, physical attraction. She knows Remy well enough to be sure about that, so it didn't quite feel like a threat.
But Cece? Cecilia Reyes?
It could work.
It could work easily, effortlessly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She hisses. “Why should’n I know-”
“Hey, you were with Magneto, remember?”
“I- It’s not the same thing!”
“Because it would never work out? Trust me, we know.”
“It’s not fair,” she shakes her head and mutters, more to herself than to Bobby, but he hears nonetheless.
“Look, Rogue..." Bobby frowns. "Granted, I never found Remy the catch people brag him to be, but… Have you ever heard about those people who decide on an ‘open marriage’ and the partner doesn’t want it, but then when it happens, the partner gets to find someone else, and the one who came up with the idea gets nothing?”
“Wha- What’s your point?”
“...You gotta be delusional if you thought you’d let him go and he’d not find a catch while you went and tried to ‘work things out’ with Magneto, of all people.”
“You-” She snaps, bewildered by how Bobby could say it to her face like that. “You make it sound like I left him over nothin'! I wanted to find myself, Bobby! Build something on my own, have the experiences I never had the chance to have, like y’all did.” This is the case she wants to make, sure, and it's a valid point. She knows this is. But now that it has been said out loud, it doesn’t sound as convincing. Neither does it to Bobby, if the look on this face is any indication. “And he… Look, I know it’s not fair, okay? I know. But he told me,” The tears are harder and harder to blink back. “He told me he’d be…”
Her home and harbor. Her final destination. Not a gamble, not an experiment, not a station along the way. Bobby doesn’t know, of course. No one knows about this conversation but she and Remy. But these words of his, they never left her mind: the security they have given her, the quiet, warm certainty he'd always be there for him… She'd always have him to go back to.
A final destination she would reach. Eventually.
A certainty that's now gone.
So here she is, tearing up over finding out Remy and Cece are dating each other, in front of none other than Bobby Drake, because she’s not only jealous, nor angry.
She’s terrified.
She’s terrified she’s gone and made herself the station along his way. And now that she realizes it, it feels like the ground has vanished beneath her feet.
“What”, she grumbles at Bobby’s snort.
“You played a hand, Roguie. You thought it might be an ace, but turns out it was a shit hand. And yeah, it happens. Shit happens." He chides. "It also sucks every single time.”
She turns tail and leaves Bobby talking to himself, before the tears spill even harder.
So much for the grown-up woman she’s supposed to be.
***
She hovers over Remy’s contact in her phone, sitting as she is on the boat’s house deck - as she’s been for a while now. His profile picture is a crop of a photo they took together in Valle Solleada, where he looks particularly stunning. Not because he's a beautiful man - which he is, and there's no shortage of people to testify to that - but because he looks so happy. As she does, too, in the original uncropped version of this picture, where they are together. This version used to be the one attached to his contact profile when they were an item - or at least in the undefined situation they’ve been in for such a long while. However, she cropped herself out of it when she started seeing Erik because, well. Adjustments had to be made, right? Not a good look to keep a couple's picture on your ex's ID on your phone when you're seeing someone else.
It’s such a beautiful picture, though. A wonderful snap of a time when she thought she had the whole world at the palm of her hand.
Looking at it, it's hard not to feel as miserable as she feels now, scrolling through his old messages and realizing how much apart they grew from each other - by her own doing.
Listening to Bobby’s wake-up call was a bitch - and Bobby has absolutely no ground to stand on when the issue is shitty choices for a lovelife, but he has a point. A very, very solid point. Cece is a very nice woman. Attractive, smart, an actual doctor with a degree and all. She would bring so much to the table when it comes to building a solid relationship. And Remy? As much as it hurts her to admit, he’s been ready for this for a while now. Ready and willing, but for so long, he reserved this slot for her. And look where it brought him.
Isn’t the sensible, mature thing to do to let him go? Let him live what he deserves with someone who’s actually ready and willing to fully commit to him, instead of keeping this little game of running away from him, chasing a wild goose until she turns up hollow, hurt and angrier than she was before?
She knows it is. And she really would like to say it’s part of the reason she let him go, back in Australia, but it’s not. She may say it aloud to people and save some face, but she can’t lie to herself and say she did it thinking of his own good.
She did it because she was afraid of committing to him, and having it end up blowing up in her face, leaving her empty-handed.
Just as she is now.
It’s a moment of weakness, but her fingers hover over the phone’s keyboard, a message already forming in her intentions almost of its own volition. She stops herself, and it’s not as effortless as typing and sending it would be. It takes such a great effort to erase it down, and to close the app before she falls into temptation again.
She misses him. Misses him like a phantom limb, and it hurts. She did before, even when she was with Erik, because for so many times Erik wasn’t really there for her. Nor was anyone else, because she was playing this part of a strong, self-reliant woman who needed no one, who was always poised and ready to deliver, to conquer the world without a moment of self-doubt. That’s what Erik expected of him as the bare minimum, or else it would ‘demean’ her⁷. Not Remy, though. Remy would be there for her; he tried to⁸. She pushed him away, so many times he might actually have grown tired and taken the hint, and how it hurts that he’s gone. Cece went and picked him up.
It’s not fair, it keeps repeating inside her mind as a broken record. 'It should be me', is what comes next, but is immediately shunned out because, should it? Past mistakes and past sins aside, he’s set the table for them, over and over. What did she bring to it?
Ororo is right, she knows it. But she can’t help hating her for it. And Bobby.
Fuck Bobby.
Fuck them all to hell.
Speaking of which…
“Hey”
“Go away,” she mutters at Bobby. It would be the sensible thing for him to do, given he doesn’t want a black eye. However, sensible things have never been Bobby’s forte, he sits by her side with a six-pack.
“Sorry for what I said earlier. I might have come across as catty.” He gets them beers ice-cold with a touch. She snorts as he hands her one. “But it’s true, though.”
“Go to hell,” she says as she snaps her beer open. Bobby snorts a laugh as the moment stretches.
“Thing is, I know the feeling,” He sips his beer. “Boy, do I know it...” Another sip. “You know you could snap your fingers and he would be back, right?”
She does, and it makes her feel nasty inside because a part of her is actually considering it.
The silence lingers.
“I won’t do that, Bobby.” She finally answers Bobby's unspoken question. “Rest assured.”
“Yet I do know how it is.” He nods at her, taking a long sip of his beer. “You know you could do it, and knowing you will be a piece of shit if you do it… it doesn’t really take the itch away.” He concedes. “Mainly because being the bigger person doesn’t add up that much satisfaction at the end of the day.”
“...What if it works, Bobby?” She asks, her voice wavering after another pregnant pause. “What if I handed this thing I want so bad on a silver platter to someone else?” He sips his beer, his face unreadable. “I know the line, ‘then it was never meant to be yours,’ but… What if I feel it in my bones that it is, this is mine to have, and yet…”
“...You keep quiet and be miserable, or you get them right back into this wretched dance, everybody gets fucked and youl’ll be miserable, too.” He nods. “Yep. Been there, done that.”
“It’s just… I love him,” She all but whispers. “I didn’t change because I was with…” She swallows; she hates how it makes her look, nasty and egotistical, but it's the truth. “It’s just, I don’t know who I am without this love, and it’s not… healthy, you know? It’s not how it’s supposed to be,” Bobby’s eyes are locked into her as she looks up at him. “I thought I had to figure it out first. Now I may not find out at all, and… What if it's for the best, no matter how much I want this?”
He keeps his silence, and it speak volumes. She wants him to tell her no, that there will be a happy ending for her at the end of the tunnel, but she also knows he knows for a fact sometimes there isn't. And that’s life. No one is granted the certainty of a happy ending. Not really.
“For what’s worth,” Bobby nods after a sip. “I’d be shit scared too if I loved the hot mess of a cajun.”
She snorts a laugh, and he smiles a ‘mission accomplished’ smile.
“If that between them works out… What do I do, Bobby?” she asks in a small voice. “How do I go through this?”
“Fuck me if I know, my therapist is a statement to that,” he shrugs. “And honestly? Being a sound, responsible adult sucks balls. Most overrated shit I've ever seen.”
The veracity of it rips a snort laugh out of her.
“But,” Bobby raises a toast. “That’s to growing up, I guess?”
“That’s to growing up,” She nods, responding in kind to another round of beer. “I guess.”
***