Interior, Gambit’s bedroom. The room is lit by candlelight, with a bottle of champagne chilling on ice in a bucket on the bedside table. The bed is freshly made with silk sheets. A stereo is playing in the corner (if we can show the lyrics, it’s Barry White.)
Enter Gambit and Rogue.
ROGUE: There’s just no point, Remy. I know you love me, but my powers are my curse, we both know that. The second ah touch you, ah’ll steal your mind and your powers.
GAMBIT: So you keep saying, ma petite chere…but I’m a gambler, non? I’m willing to press my luck, especially when the rewards…
He leans in.
GAMBIT: …are worth the risk.
Rogue pulls away, but not too far.
ROGUE: Ah, ah can’t, ah can’t risk it…
GAMBIT: You’re not the one taking the risk, amie. I am…
He leans in again, and this time his lips make contact.
GAMBIT: Definitely worth it.
Rogue’s eyes widen in shock. Speechless, she allows Gambit to lead her to the bed. He sits down and pulls her down to him. They kiss again, more passionately and longer this time.
ROGUE: Ah don’t believe it!
GAMBIT: Neither do I, chere. You never expected a man to kiss you but you still wore flavored lip gloss.
Rogue giggles, and the two of them clinch together in a longer, more fevered embrace. Gambit pulls Rogue’s gloves off and takes her hand in his, and then reaches out to undress her further…
Suddenly, the stereo stops.
GAMBIT: Merde!
He leaps to his feet.
ROGUE: What’s the problem, sugah? It’s probably just the end of the CD, and…say, did you hear something?
GAMBIT (fumbling with the stereo player): No! No, ma petite chere fille amie, it’s probably just, um, the pounding of your heart.
ROGUE: No, it sounds like it’s coming from under the bed.
GAMBIT: What? Ahahahahaha! Oh, that’s rich. There’s nobody under the bed!
ROGUE: Who said anything about a person?
GAMBIT: Nobody! You’re just imagining crazy talk, that’s all. Worrying about nothing. Now let me–
ROGUE: That was a thump. Ah distinctly heard a thump.
GAMBIT: It was nothing! I mean, nobody! I mean–
Rogue gets up and kneels down next to the bed. She peers underneath the hanging bedspread.
ROGUE: Oh mah God! Is that Leech!?!
GAMBIT: I can explain, ma petite chere petite fille petite–
ROGUE: Did you tie him up down there?
GAMBIT: A little, maybe, but it was for us!
ROGUE: When were you going to let him go?
GAMBIT: Um. Depends. You gonna stay the night?
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My personal favorite answer to Rogue-drama (this was back in the 90s before thinking about Rogue and romance meant inevitably thinking about her having sex with the Sentry) was always “Aren’t there tons of devices in the Marvel universe that will suppress mutant powers, many of them of sufficiently small size they could be built into a piece of jewelry? Why doesn’t Rogue just have a bracelet made and then go on some dates?”
And then my friends would tell me Batman was cooler than the X-Men and I should read that instead.
All the mutants lived in the X-Mansion, right? How far do Leech’s powers go? Could they just put him in the next room with some headphones on loud?
If he’s unconscious, there’s no problem!
Hey, Rogue could have sex with Leech, right?
Many points that will be made here, are always ignored by the editors because it makes Rouge a more interesting character.
Because creating a reliable way to limit/turn off a person’s powers would reshape the entire narrative of mutant power angst.
A more annoying character, perhaps. And the day the last mispelling of Rogue to Rouge happens will be the end of the world.
So, they won’t let you write X-Men because you’d still use this 20-year-old joke?
Nah, it’s because the next scene is Rogue dumping Gambit in favor of Leech. Somehow, they just weren’t ready for a romance between a 20-something woman and a ten-year-old boy.
Or to handle the fact that one of the positives of her condition was that she wasn’t going to accidentally wind up knocked up with Gambit’s unholy demon spawn.
I said so in 1994, and I say so now: Rogue could do much much better.
You shouldn’t tie Leech up. You should give him incentive to play along.
***
ROGUE: Why is he masturbating?
GAMBIT: It was part of the deal. Morlocks take what they can get, mon chere.
Unless Gambit is wearing sunglasses, couldn’t Rouge tell that his eyes weren’t that weird black-and-red color? Or does that not get turned off? I can never remember.
Of course, Emma could just zap them into brain space where they could do whatever they wanted. Hell, Gambit would probably enjoy being watched. “Don’t worry Mon Ami, She IS a licensed sex therapist.”
I think I first read this story in about 1994…except that they didn’t stop.
Gambit will never not suck.
That is all. I am sorry that I have nothing substantive to add to the conversation.
@Murc: That works, but MY favourite solution to the Rogue drama has always been a little more real-world tech based: ROGUE AND GAMBIT QUIT MOPING AND BUY SOME GODDAMN SEX TOYS AND A WHOLE LOT OF GODDAMN PLASTIC WRAP.
http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=§ion=&global=1&q=rorschach+rogue#/d2rjfi0
You know, this hasn’t been her dramatic hook for a few years now.
And yes, we all wondered this back in the 1980s. I believe my particular favorite version of it involved the Genoshan slave collars. Jim Smith’s right; this joke is about twenty years past its freshness date.
Doesn’t Rogue have control over her powers now? Or did someone go behind Mike Carey’s back and regress her back to 1985 again, like they always do?
I barely follow any comics anymore.
I was going to do a dialogue-based joke about Rogue making noises indicating sexual pleasure and it turning out to be her reaction (heretofore unknown) to character development, but it seemed a little unfair in light of the fact that she has, occasionally, been known to develop as a character. Still…
What Murc and Dani said. You telling me that you couldn’t make a control collar to suppress Rogue’s abilities and put it in a necklace?
I mean, there are woefully underapplied technologies in the Marvel Universe, but this one takes the bloody cake. Rogue not taking advantage of this technology is like Scott Summers choosing not to use his visor because it would restrict his powers too much.
DistantFred,
No, you’re correct. Rogue is in complete control of her powers at the moment.
You know how OLD this joke is? I think I read it at the very least 10 years ago on RACMX.
Also, Rogue has complete control of her powers by now and isn’t dating Remy anymore.
This joke is so old I have it on Super 8.
HEY-OH!
Y’all can complain about humor expiration dates all you want, that lip gloss line is comedy genius.
I recall a fanfic from the 90′s that ended with “Can Leech come out from under the bed yet?”
Iceman had to use a mutant neutralizer belt for a while to keep his powers down to levels he could control. He apparently got a more streamlined version of it as part of his new costume in the early days of the Blue/Gold teams relaunch.
So, presumably that means Forge reverse engineered the belt or adapted his own mutant neutralizer design and came up with something better. If that’s the case, he definitely could have made something similar for Rogue. Or maybe a more temporary version of the neutralizer ray that would wear off after two hours, or something she could hide in her room that would work like Leech’s power.
Anyway, there was never a good in-story reason to keep Rogue frustrated and celibate other than Claremont found it interesting.
And here I thought the reveal was just going to be that Gambit had figured out how condoms work.
Brilliant!
Nah, it’s because the next scene is Rogue dumping Gambit in favor of Leech.
you’d still use this 20-year-old joke?
.
To be..that guy…Leech’s powers don’t work so much on Rogue…the time they touched, they both got knocked out.
Can I be even MORE that guy and say that you’re probably thinking of Scrambler of the Marauders, back in the Mutant Massacre? When Rogue touches people, she absorbs their powers; when Scrambler touches people, he disrupts or overloads their powers. Put them together and hilarity ensues (note: unconsciousness not actually hilarious).
If this was an old story 20 years ago, it means Marvel is right now considering it for 2011.
I forget which issue it was, but there was a story way back when that had the X-Men going up against the Morlocks, and when Leech touched Rogue, he got knocked out and she was left powerless. I am pretty sure it was when Claremont and JRJR were doing the book.