Work Text:
Rogue had been to Kurt’s grave before.
She had gone when the stone was first placed, when the earth was still dark and freshly turned l, and everyone had been too raw to know what to say. She had gone with the team, standing among them while flowers were laid at his feet and prayers were spoken in voices that seemed too quiet for the size of what they had lost. She had gone alone, too, though she had never stayed very long. She would stand there for a few minutes, say something to him in her head, and then leave before the grief could catch up with her.
Today, she stayed.
The cemetery was quiet in the late afternoon, the air cool enough that she could feel it against her face. Leaves shifted softly overhead, stirred by a wind that never seemed strong enough to reach the ground. Kurt’s grave sat beneath the shade of an old tree, his name carved into the stone in letters that still looked wrong to her.
Kurt Wagner.
Brother. Friend. X-Man.
There should have been more.
There should have been decades after his name. More missions. More arguments. More of his laughter echoing through the mansion. More evenings sitting around the kitchen while he told stories she had heard a thousand times before. More mornings when he would appear beside her without warning, blue fur and yellow eyes and that gentle smile making her roll her eyes before she smiled back.
There would have been more, if not for her.
Rogue lowered herself onto the grass in front of the stone.
“Hey, Kurt. I ain’t been here in a while.” The admission made something twist painfully in her chest. “I know that’s probably terrible.”
The wind moved through the branches above her. She looked down at his name.
“I just…”
Her voice failed. She swallowed and tried again.
“I don’t know what to say.”
That wasn’t true. She had thought of a thousand things.
She wanted to tell him about Remy. She wanted to tell him how impossible it felt to see him alive again, how frightened he was, how much he had changed. She wanted to tell Kurt that Remy was still Remy, even if he didn’t believe it yet. She wanted to tell him that she had finally gotten the chance to hold the man she had spent so long mourning.
She wanted Kurt to know that he had not died for nothing. But she never wanted him to think his death was worth all of this. She could not tell a grave that she benefited from a death that made her feel she’d lost a chunk of her own soul.
Rogue reached out and touched the edge of the stone. “I just wish you were here.”
The words came out so quietly that she almost didn’t hear them herself. Her eyes burned. “I wish you were here and I wasn’t.”
Her breath caught. And that was it. Everything she had been holding together for weeks came apart.
Rogue bent forward, one hand covering her mouth as the first sob escaped. She tried to stop it. She had gotten very good at stopping herself. She had spent months learning how to swallow grief until it became something heavy and familiar inside her chest.
But Kurt’s name stood stark on his grave. She could not hold to the unbearable fact that the world had continued moving without him.
And suddenly she was crying so hard she couldn’t breathe.
“I miss you,” she choked out.
Her shoulders shook.
“I miss you so much.”
She pressed both hands against her face, but it didn’t help. Tears slipped between her fingers, and the sound that came out of her was small and broken and nothing like the woman who had fought alongside the X-Men.
“Kurt, you weren’t supposed to die.” She looked at his name through blurred vision. “It was supposed to be me.”
A familiar voice came from behind her.
“Chère?”
She turned.
Remy stood several feet away.
He looked uncomfortable, as though he wasn’t sure whether he had the right to be there.
His hands were tucked into the pockets of his jacket. His posture was careful, his weight favoring one side slightly, and Rogue knew he was probably hurting more than he wanted her to know. But he had come anyway.
She wiped at her face. “What are you doing here?”
He shrugged. “Couldn’t find you.”
She looked back at the grave. “I needed to see him.”
“I know.”
Remy moved closer, but he didn’t sit beside her immediately. He stopped a few feet away and looked at Kurt’s name.
For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he lowered himself carefully onto the grass beside her.
Rogue noticed the way he winced.
“You all right?”
“Fine.”
She gave him a look, and he sighed, raising his hands in a show of surrender. “Hurts a little.”
“Remy.”
“I know, chère.”
He settled beside her anyway, and she didn’t turn him away. Neither of them spoke. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable.
Rogue looked at Kurt’s name again. “He was too good,” she whispered.
Remy turned his head. “He was.”
“He didn’t deserve this.”
Remy was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, “No.”
Rogue’s eyes filled again.
“He was kind to everybody. Even people who didn’t deserve it. Even when they were cruel to him. He always believed there was something worth saving in everybody.” Her voice cracked. “He should’ve had more time.”
Remy looked down at his hands. “Yeah.”
She glanced at him. There was something distant in his expression. Something she recognized. He was thinking about his own grave. About his own death. About the fact that he had been there too.
Rogue reached for his hand. His fingers curled around hers.
“He shouldn’t have been the one,” she whispered.
Remy only squeezed her hand in response. Rogue leaned against his shoulder. For a while, they simply sat there.
Rogue stared at Kurt’s name until the letters blurred again. “It should have been me,” she said.
His head lifted.
“I made the choice. I knew what I was doing. I knew what would happen, and I did it anyway.” Her voice trembled. “Then Kurt took it from me. He looked at me and he knew exactly what I was trying to do, and he went to that celestial and told it to take him instead.”
Remy’s expression tightened.
“He saved me.”
“I know, chère.”
“He shouldn’t have had to.” She wiped at her cheeks, but more tears followed. “I keep thinking about it. About him standing there. About him making that choice so easy, like his life was something he could just hand away.” She shook her head. “And I let him.”
“Didn’ let him do nothin’.”
“I should’ve stopped him.”
“Rogue.”
“He should’ve known that I wasn’t worth it.”
Remy went very still. “Don’t say that.”
She looked at him.
His face had changed. The softness was gone, replaced by something raw and frightened. “You don’t get to say that, chère.”
“Remy, I killed him.”
“No.”
“I was the one who made the choice.”
“Kurt made his.” His voice was quiet, but there was something firm underneath it. “He chose you.”
Rogue looked away. “I wish he hadn’t.”
Remy was silent for a long moment.
Then he said, “So do I.”
She turned back toward him. He was staring at Kurt’s grave.
“Wish it was neither of you.” His voice broke slightly. “But it wasn’t.” Remy’s eyes were shining. She thought she could see the start of a tear in the corner of his eye. “I would’ve lost you.”
“Remy…”
“I know what you gonna say.” He shook his head. “I know Kurt was your brother. I know what he meant. I know what he did was brave and good and the kind of thing Kurt would do.” His jaw tightened. “But I am a selfish sinner. Enough to be glad it wan’t you.”
Rogue’s breath caught, as the tears finally slipped down Remy’s face.
He went on, “I am so damn relieved you’re here. I wouldn’t have survived it, chère.”
“You would’ve.”
“No.” He looked at her. “I wouldn’t.”
There was no bravado in him. No attempt to make the words lighter than they were. He needed her to understand this.
“If you died for me, I don’t know what I’d do with that. Knowing you gave your life for mine…” He swallowed. “I couldn’t live with myself.”
Rogue squeezed his hand. “You didn’t ask me to do it.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t make that choice.”
“I know.” Remy looked back toward the grave. “Still gotta apologize.”
Rogue frowned. “For what?”
“For Kurt.”
She stared at him.
“He died savin’ you. And I was the one who came back.”
Her expression softened. “Remy, Kurt didn’t die because of you.”
“You neither, chère.”
She had nothing to say to that, pressing her lips into a firm line.
He raised their joined hands between them and pressed a featherlike kiss to her knuckles.
“Heart don’ always listen.”
Rogue’s eyes filled again.
“No,” she whispered. “It don’t.”
They sat quietly for a while.
Then Rogue said, “I blame myself.”
Remy looked at her. “I know. It hurt. It gonna hurt for a long time, chère.”
He shifted closer, slowly, giving her enough time to move away if she wanted.
She didn’t.
“You know what Kurt would say?”
A small, broken laugh escaped her. “Probably something annoyingly wise and nice.”
“Probably.”
She smiled faintly.
“He tell you life ain’t somethin’ you getta throw away ‘cuz you grievin’ his.”
Rogue’s smile disappeared.
Remy continued.
“And he tell you he made his choice.”
She looked at him.
“He did.”
“He knew what he was doin’.”
“I know.”
“And he loved you ‘nough to do it.”
Rogue closed her eyes. More tears slipped down her cheek. She thought she’d cried more this year than all her years combined. Even after her powers, her Momma, all of it.
“That don’t make it easier.”
“No.” Remy looked at Kurt’s grave. “It ain’t supposed to.”
Rogue rested her head against his shoulder. He leaned his cheek gently against her hair. For a while, they said nothing.
The wind moved through the trees again, soft and almost warm now.
Finally, Rogue whispered, “I don’t want his death to be the thing that defines him.”
“It won’t.”
“I don’t want to remember him only because he died for me.”
“You won’t.”
She looked at the grave. “I want to remember him laughing.”
Remy smiled faintly. “Then remember that.”
“I want to remember him teleporting into my room just to annoy me.”
“He did that to everybody. Way I heard, led to a couple of unfortunate situations.”
“I want to remember him singing.”
Remy gave a quiet laugh. “Now that I remember.”
She smiled through her tears. “I want to remember my brother.” Not her savior. Not the martyr.
“You should.”
Rogue squeezed his hand.
“I want to remember that he loved me. I loved him.”
Remy looked at her. “You hold on to that, too.”
Rogue leaned against him again. Neither of them looked away from Kurt’s grave.
There was no way to make his death fair. No way to return the years he should have had. No way to make Rogue stop wishing she could trade places with him.
But there was still something left to do. Live. For Kurt. For themselves.
For all the days that had been taken from them and all the days they still had left.
And when Remy’s thumb brushed slowly over the back of her hand, Rogue held on tighter.