the Man of Steal

Remy: Courier. I’ve seen you lookin’ better.

Jake: Hummm. The fur bikini chafed me for days. How was your … “flight” to Paris?

Remy: Any getaway is good, I guess. You know how this “New Son” manages that trick?

Jake: I’ve asked more questions than that myself. Who is he? What does he want? And how’s he convincing so many of us to do whatever he wants? I know as much about him—if he even is a he—as you do.

Remy: Why would he want this t’ing? What is it?

Jake: I’m a messenger, Remy. I’m paid to deliver, not question. Company line aside, it looks like a gauntlet … or an interface.

Remy: For what?

Remy: Like butter. Cigarettes’re my poison.

Jake: [lighting up a cigar] The boss’s little trip to the Antarctic is proving worthwhile, isn’t it?

Remy: [putting on shades with box of cigars in other hand] I would’ve made it out on my own … eventually.

Jake: Tell that to the one who found you face down in the snow, semi-comatose and muttering about someone named “Chere.”

Remy: [talking away] I have t’go.

Jake: Back to your X-Men friends?

Remy: Yah … Back t’my friends.

Jake: (leaning back, right ankle crossed on his left knee) I’m sure I’ll be in touch again … soon.

Remy: Yah … So’m I.

[Fontanelle invades Jean-Luc LeBeau’s dream and forces him through a recount of Remy’s childhood: The Thieves’ Guild stole Remy as an infant for The Antiquary, but Jean-Luc succeeded in removing Remy from the care of The Antiquary by placing him with Fagan’s Mob, a group of street orphans. At eight, Remy met Bella Donna Boudreaux, daughter of the patriarch of the Assassin’s Guild, with whom he fell in love. Jean-Luc then adopted Remy into the Thieves’ Guild and arranged his marriage to Bella Donna to create peace between the assassins and thieves. Unfortunately, Bel’s brother challenged Remy to a duel to the death. Remy won but was exiled to appease the Assassin’s Guild. He wandered the world alone for a bit before hooking up with the X-Men.]

End Interlude 1

[Remy picks up a sandwich from the pier where there is also a money clip, a deck of cards and a pack of cigarettes.]

BAMF

Remy sleeps in the boathouse, separate from the main living area—so close, and yet so far. For now, he prefers it that way. [Remy sniffs the air.]

And, he thinks, his teammates do, too.

[Remy, in nothing but a pair of cutoff shorts, sits on the pier with his feet dangling over the edge. He puts down the sandwich as a pair of hands reach for his ankles from under the pier.]

Remy: Hey, Nightcrawler, that you?

SPLOOSH

[The hands yank on Remy’s ankles and Remy falls into the water.]

Kurt: Ja, mein freund. It’s me. [He sits on the pier and picks up the sandwich.] Turkey? Good.

Remy: Got my coodies.

Kurt: Had worse. You hear something?

SFEEEE

POP

KAKATHOOM

[The cards explode sending Kurt flying into the air holding his tail.]

Remy: Jus’ the sound of payback, Stinky.

Kitty: [materializing]Nice trick, LeBeau.

[Logan walks up as Ororo and Rogue fly in.]

Kitty: A time-delay on your kinetic charge? When’d you pick that one up?

Logan: Boy’s a regular secret machine, Kitty. [A fly buzzes around Logan’s head.]

Remy: Takes one to know one, Wolverine.

Kurt: Good comeback.

[Logan crushes an empty cigarette pack.]

Remy: Out of cigs, mon ami? Here. [Remy hands Logan a cigar from a box.]

Logan: A Cohiba? Nice. Since when you smoke Cubans?

Remy: I don’t. Jus’ carry ‘em around to impress people. But let that be our little secret.

Ororo: There was a message for you. A Jacob Gavin?

Remy: Great, Stormy.

Ororo: A problem?

Remy: Nah.

[Remy walks away as Logan lights up in the background. The fly continues to buzz Logan.]

Logan: Hmm. Nice drag. Why would the Courier be callin’ the Gumbo?

Ororo: Logan, You know this man—?

Logan: His father. They run an international messenger ser—

POW [The cigar explodes in Logan’s mouth.]

Logan: —vice.

Kurt: You—

Ororo: —he—

[Kitty, Kurt and Ororo laugh. Logan kills the fly with one of his claws.]

Rogue: You got a heckuva deathwish, Remy.

Remy: Or’n incredible sense of style.

Rogue: …

Remy: … How mad you t’ink that made ‘im, Rogue?

Rogue: He can cope. The same way you do?

Remy: Copin’ is the 24-7 of my life, chere.

Rogue: An’ here I was hopin’ for an angst-free day. This Gavin … Old drinkin’ buddies usually don’t have codenames.

Remy: Worried, Rogue … or suspicious?

Rogue: Maybe both.

Remy: (walking into the boathouse) An’ here I was hopin’ for a guilt-free day. Ah, well … tomorrow’s another day.

[Elysian Enterprises (the people from the temple in China) arrange clearance for a convoy through Croatia.]

[Rogue lies sleeping in her bedroom. Remy enters and watches her.]

A touch. So little to ask for. So much to expect. Does he still love her? How can he ever tell her the truth … when so much of him has always been a lie?

[Rogue wakes up to the sounds of vehicle revving outside.]

Rogue: Remy —?

[Remy attacks the convoy being protected by X-Cutioner and three others to steal the cargo for New Son. X-Cutioner incapacitates Remy with some sort of green goo. Remy tells X-Cutioner that the cargo is too dangerous for Elysian Enterprises or his own employer to have so he planned on not letting anyone have it. He then charges his gum and spits it at X-Cutioner, who is blown out of the transport truck. However, Remy is still incapacitated in a driverless truck that’s about to go over a cliff. Rogue flies in and lifts Remy to safety. The truck explodes.]

Remy: Don’t tell me— Both won out in the end?

Rogue: Where you’re concerned, boy, can you blame me?

Remy: Considerin’ my lil’ predicament, I’d have t’ say no.

Rogue: “Thanks for the save, Rogue.”

Remy: Don’ mention it, chere.

[On a rocky hilltop, Remy smokes as Rogue looks off into the distance.]

Rogue: Croatia, huh? You show a girl all the sights.

Remy: We do have fun dates, don’ we?

Rogue: Why’d you come alone, Gumbo?

Remy: Basic math, chere. Info came from a less than reputable source. Elysian is a legit company doin’ legit business. Didn’ wanna dirty the X-Men’s hands.

Rogue: Oh. Cool. So … [Rogue takes Remy hand] you gonna fly back commecial … or would you rather go first class?

Interlude 2

[Jake, dressed in a three-piece suit and trenchcoat, walks up a long series of outdoor steps. Several steps up stands Fontanelle .]

Jake: What? Oh … h-e-double hockey sticks. You interrupted a great dream.

Fontanelle: [touching a passing faceless person, whose faces begins to change]Set in Washington D.C.? Lewinsky?

Jake: Uhm… appropriations committee hearings.

Fontanelle: [speaking to the formerly faceless man who has turned into another Jake] You’re a strange man, Jacob Jr. How unhappy is the new son over his Cajun recruit’s actions?

Jake [the second]: You tell me, Fonty— I already got Gambit’s next assignment. He has to steal something from the X-Men!

End Interlude 2