All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: I wrote this to have a little fun with what is passing for canon right now. This story is set after Secret Wars and the eight month time gap, so spoilers if you haven't read the first few months of Duggan's Uncanny Avengers or Lemire's Extraordinary X-Men. I am sure some of the characters and things included here will be inaccurate by the time I have it all posted, but I've been itching to write something 'up-to-date', so here goes anyway!

This will reference a lot of the newer settings and plot points Marvel's batting around, including Magneto's team of X-villains, the rise of the Inhumans and the release of the Terrigen Mists, as well as the Jean Grey School's exile to Limbo, but I also threw in nods to an X-Men Evolution plot and some older 616 arcs. Rogue and Gambit as always are my main characters, but I pulled in a pretty big supporting cast to help them out. At heart though, it's a Romy story.

I'm also following the Marvel adage that dead doesn't necessarily mean dead, especially when we're talking about my villains. Unless somebody croaked on paper, I consider them fair game, as you'll see in the first chapter.

Just to get everybody on the same page as the story begins, Rogue is still with the Avengers' Unity Squad, now operating out of Schaefer Theatre in NYC, and she is afflicted with the Terrigen Mist derived M-Pox. Captain America is a senior citizen and her boss. Our Logan is dead, Teen Jean Grey is stranded in the future and attending college at Empire State University, and Storm, Forge, Iceman, and the Rasputins are hiding in Limbo.

This first chapter is a lot of set up. Our girl makes an appearance by the end, but no Remy until next week.

Hope you enjoy it!

Exes

Chapter One

A great heave of stone sent a cloud of dust and rubble raining to the floor below, the blanket of darkness pierced by a beam of artificial light that sliced through the ancient tomb's impenetrable depths. A man, but so much more than merely a man, jumped from the opening to the floor, five stories at a straight drop. He stood with barely a hair out of place from where it was tied into a long dark ponytail, and brushed the dirt from the shoulders of his crisp designer jacket. Across his back was slung a massive broadsword, the hilt of which glittered in the twinkling of the flashlight. From his pocket he pulled a handful of glow sticks and snapped one with each step, tossing them at various distances to illuminate the cavernous space.

At first glance it appeared to be a primitive structure, an ancient tomb forgotten to the ravages of nature and time, but a closer inspection revealed a masterpiece that defied architectural logic. The arches that curved from the ground level to the stories high ceiling used stones cleaved by the hands of slaves long since perished, and the open space of the chamber's floor was flanked with rows of colossal stone statuary carved in a highly sophisticated and stylized manner. Above, the snowstorms of the Himalayan Mountains raged, but you would never know it in the musty, eerie silence below. Dancing the beam of light over walls and doorways as he walked, he paused on a massive glyph engraved on the stone's surface.

"Apocalypse." Lips spread into a slow smile. "Tell me your secrets."

A faint noise reached his superhuman ears, the chink of metal against rock. Sword drawn, the man followed the noise through a twisting maze of chambers guarded by the silent statues. At the soft glow of burning torches ahead, he switched off his flashlight and soundlessly stepped forward.

A man that appeared to be made entirely of sandstone stood before a wall of fresh carvings. Moving as easily as if he were flesh and bone, the living sculpture poised his mallet above a chisel braced against the smooth plane, but waited before he struck, and spoke.

"It is impossible to sneak up on one who has seen your approach for hundreds of years." The creature's voice was the scrape of a rockslide. "Step from the shadows, and step towards your…destiny."

Destiny. That word, the name of a woman he knew too well, burned through his chest. He sheathed his blade and moved into the light. "Ozymandias, I believe? Scribe of the immortal En Sabah Nur, the first mutant, Apocalypse."

Ozymandias raised his hammer and struck the handle of the chisel. A flake of ancient stone skittered across the floor of the chamber. "Vargas. The self-proclaimed next step in the evolution of mankind?"

The man known as Vargas continued forward, head held high atop broad shoulders. "I presume, ancient one, if you know who I am, you also know what brings me here?"

An arm of rock gestured to the carved masterpiece before them. "Indeed. Fear."

Growling, Vargas sneered arrogantly at the impossibility of nature speaking to him. "You assume too much, once and forever slave."

A head older than time turned slightly, amused. "Do I? It is fear that has driven your kind since they first climbed from the primordial seas. Fear of the final, great unknown. In this, you are no different."

"You DARE…"

The ancient being drew his tools into his chest and pulled a burning torch from the wall. "Where you differ from your brethren, Vargas, is your search to answer that unknown. That search is what has led you…here."

He spread his arms and motioned behind them with the torch. The glow of the fire illuminated a space larger than a soccer stadium, and the surprising gleam of technology reflected the light, the sparkle of metal crawling from the stone floor towards the ceiling of the vast room. A machine. It was like nothing Vargas had ever seen, appearing to be alien in origin and leaps ahead of current expertise, it looked older than the rock surrounding it. The pair moved towards the immense structure.

A breathless Vargas caressed the glittering metallic surface with light fingers. "What is it?" he asked, though he already knew the answer.

Months of study and searching had drawn him to this place. There were whispers that echoed down the ages, mentions of Apocalypse's greatest secret: his regeneration chambers. The chambers were how the world's first mutant had lived for thousands of years, disappearing for long stretches of time to heal and lie in wait, and their locations were his best kept secret. A handful in Egypt, the ancient's birthplace if the rumors were to be believed, but murmurs of another, a mystery until now, nestled in the world's tallest mountains.

Ozymandias smiled. "It is immortality."

Gleefully, Vargas began studying the alien equipment while Ozymandias stood as still as that which he was made of. A sarcophagus, decorated equally with carved glyphs and circuit boards, was connected by conduits to another larger area, a holding pen, this divided into sections large enough to accommodate a dozen men lying in neat rows, and each section was wired to the next.

"Twelve…" Vargas murmured and reached into an inner pocket of his jacket. He drew a small and battered book from the depths and frantically flipped its pages. The book was the diary of a mad woman, Irene Adler, the mutant clairvoyant Destiny, and had given Vargas an invaluable glimpse into the past, present, and future. The monster Sinister had nearly taken it from him, but he had saved the book and its predictions, though the volume's rescue had nearly cost him his life. The encounter with the mutant geneticist had proven inspirational. Vargas was the pinnacle mankind had to offer, but he was still mortal and upon learning of Apocalypse and his riddles, had set his mind to rectify that shortcoming. "It was prophesized Apocalypse could be destroyed by twelve powerful mutants…but I thought that battle took place in Egypt?"

"So it was written, so it was done. The First One lured the mutants to his temple in Egypt, but the prophecy itself was a ruse. The Twelve were brought together not to destroy, but as the fuel that awakened En Sabah Nur from his healing slumber. Consider this chamber a…prototype…for the master's final machine. After all, practice makes perfect."

Vargas regarded the machinery appreciably from over the page of his book. "Clever."

"It would have been, had not one of the mutants proven unworthy. Magneto, the vaunted Master of Magnetism, failed. He and his powers were weak, and unraveled the tapestry of mutant energy."

Stroking his chin with his thumb and forefinger, Vargas paced the base of the technological monstrosity. It was clear time had taken its toll on the chamber, as the surface of the equipment was pitted and filthy, corroded in some places, but it looked repairable. Another inspiration struck from on high.

"Mutant energy was the fuel of your master's machine, but one mislaid miscreant brought down the house of cards. Tell me, is it the number of mutants that matters, or merely the power they wield?"

"One or one hundred, it matters not. What was important to activate the chamber was the accumulated energies of the beings inside it."

"Interesting. So, if one could gather all of that power…there would be no need to bring all twelve of those miserable mutants here, no risk of the rotten apple spoiling the bunch."

"Gather?" The ancient scribe furrowed rock eyebrows beneath a stony turban. "I would like to know what bucket would collect such rain water."

The grin that split the handsome yet cold face of the Spanish super-human would have chilled any mortal to the bone. Memories of a sword fight flickered to his mind's eye, memories of a woman with a soul that matched her fiery spirit, of green eyes and a trail of white hair that blazed amongst a field of auburn, but most importantly to Vargas, were the memories of a score that sorely needed settling.

"I believe, ancient one, I know of just such a bucket."

He could be anywhere on Earth in the blink of an eye, but somehow he had always found himself in the worst places one could imagine.

The mutant called Vanisher was a teleporter, but since his talents had manifested themselves in his late teens, he had been drawn into the greed and corruption of the criminal underworld with a comfortable ease. Robbery, prostitution, drug trafficking, he had a hand in all of them over the years and had come through relatively unscathed. In truth, his luck had only changed for the worse when he had attempted to walk on the side of the angels, using his talents to help the X-Men, then later X-Force. That particular mutant hit squad had tortured and abused him and left him for dead, but Teleford Porter, the alias alone a testament to the scrawny man's sense of humor, had survived better than a Twinkie after a nuke bomb.

There was a slight limp to his steps as he pushed through the crowded streets of Bangkok, but that was to be expected. He had been shot six times. Six times! It was a miracle that he had lived, and pain like that made a man rethink his life and remember what was important, what mattered the most. Priorities. He stepped from the sidewalk through the doors of his favorite strip club, and took a table closest to the poles. His face, a striped mess of horizontal black tattoos, gleefully followed every bounce of a naked breast across the stage.

Three songs in, the hulking form of a man sat down, too close, at the next table. Vanisher, unwilling to avert his eyes from the blonde dancer in mid-backbend, hissed out of the side of his mouth. "Hey, buddy, it's a big place. How 'bout a little personal space?"

A large hand roughly grabbed his wrist and snapped a black metallic band around it in the same motion. Vanisher shoved his stool back, but couldn't break the iron grip or remove the bracelet. A failed attempt to teleport away clenched his bowels.

"What the fuck?"

The man next to him turned his face towards the mutant. "Hello, Teleford."

Vanisher's eyes widened, and his prominent Adam's apple bobbed with a panicked swallow. "Heeeeyyyy, Vargas. Long time, no see."

Vargas released his grip on Vanisher and scooted his chair closer. "Perhaps not long enough, Teleford?" The teleporter tried his power again and the device wrapping his wrist flashed red. The larger man tapped the band with a finger. "Power dampener. I wouldn't want you to leave before you hear what I have to offer. I have need of your services."

Teleford tried to control his breathing and his first, best instinct, to bolt for the door, but running wouldn't do him any good. Without his powers, Vargas would snap his neck like a toothpick. "Sorry, man, those X-Force fucks dissolved my organization. Besides, no more mutants, no more MGH." Vanisher had run a successful cartel out of South America that had specialized in marketing Mutant Growth Hormone to a select clientele. Wolverine and his black-ops X-Force squad had ripped his livelihood apart, but the Terrigen Mists that now roamed the planet and crippled mutantkind had put the final nail in the coffin. The look on Vargas's face made Vanisher's palms sweaty and he backpedaled. "I mean, if you need a fix, I've got a decent stash squirreled away…"

The answering smile was hardly reassuring. "That talent is not what I was referring to, though if you indeed have access to that power restoring wonder drug, you may have solved a problem that has been plaguing me. No, I refer instead to your own mutant talent. I wish to hire the Vanisher for a very special job."

"You can't afford me." Every crook worth the name knew who Vargas was, and knew not to cross him. The man scared the hell out of Vanisher, and there was no way he wanted to get any closer if he could help it. Teleford's recent brush with death had painted a very yellow streak down his belly.

Leaning back casually, the dark-haired man inclined his head. "You haven't heard what I'm offering."

"And what's that?"

"Immortality. A chance to live forever."

Vanisher rolled his eyes. "What, are you a vampire now?"

The answering laugh was a rich, deep baritone. "Amusing. Tell me, Senor Porter, what do you know of the mutant named…Apocalypse?"

More than he had ever wanted, truth be told, but, intrigued, Vanisher leaned forward. "I'm listening."

He walked on tiptoes past the steel reinforced door. Silent, stealthy, he even managed to avoid the creak in the aging, slatted floor. Pulling his ring of keys from his pocket centimeter by painstaking centimeter, he inserted one in the lock, cringing at the turn of the tumblers, so loud it surely set off the woman's alarm bells. Pushing open the door sent his heart skipping joyously. He was clear! He had made it! He was so ecstatic that he dropped the keys, and watched in horror as they skittered across the scuffed wooden surface. He stooped hastily to retrieve them when his landlady's door burst open.

"Vincent!" From his knees he closed his eyes and groaned inwardly. "Rent's due on the 1st, Vincent!"

His eyes trailed up her house slippers, her pleated mom jeans and puffer vest layered beneath sternly crossed arms, and winced at the sharp eyes that bore scathingly into his from beneath hair reminiscent of a cockatoo's crest. When she spoke, the inflated curls bobbed with every word.

"Yes, Mrs. Dripps."

She moved her hands to her hips and loomed over him. "And what is today's date?"

Sighing, he pushed up on one knee and stood. "Today is the 30th, Mrs. Dripps. You'll have your rent tomorrow, I promise."

"Really?" She glared at him with so much venom that it made his stomach hurt. "Really? Because I'm pretty sure that's what you said last month, and the month before that. I'm sick of your excuses, mutant. You're lucky I let you live here in the first place! If that money's not in my hands tomorrow, you're done!" She gave one more shake of her feathers, one more look like he was a dog turd on her shoe, then slammed the door in his face.

Vincent exhaled with his head down and shuffled into his pitiful apartment. The light turning on sent roaches scattering under threadbare furniture and empty takeout containers. The apartment was basically one room with a kitchenette and attached bathroom, but the witch next door charged a fortune. A fortune he could barely afford. The wallet he tossed on the kitchen counter was as empty as his bank account and, apparently, the refrigerator. He slammed the door and leaned heavily on the counter with his head hung between his arms. Seventy hours a week at two dead-end jobs and he couldn't even scrape out lower class. No wonder his girlfriend had left him. She had been right, he was nothing but a loser.

It hadn't always been like this, though sometimes it had been worse. The man once called Mesmero had it all and lost just as much more times than he could count. Losing her had hurt like hell, but losing his girl hadn't been near as hard as losing his mutant powers. His hypnotic gift disappearing in a flash had torn a piece out of his soul. And the shit of it was, he still looked like a mutant! His green skin hadn't vanished along with the powers. He got all the discrimination, none of the perks. What he wouldn't give to have those powers again. He would have that bitch Dripps eating out of his hand with just one look. Hell, he'd make her do cartwheels!

He started rummaging through cupboards in search of food, and found a dented can of green beans when he heard a soft pop behind him. Turning to the noise, he jumped at the sight of two men suddenly standing in the middle of his apartment. Vincent threw himself back against the kitchen sink and dropped the can. It rolled along the floor towards his visitors, coming to rest at the feet of the tall, broad man with his dark hair slicked back into a ponytail.

"Who are you people?" Vincent stuttered. "How did you get in here?"

The muscular beast of a man bent and picked up the can, inspecting it closely, his lip curling into a snobbish sneer. "The how is not so difficult when you understand whom…"

The other man, bony and bald, his face striped with thick black tattoos, waggled his fingers. "How's it hangin', Vince?"

"Vanisher?" The supervillain underworld wasn't that big of a place. Mesmero hadn't pulled many jobs with the Vanisher, but a lifetime ago, there had been enough.

"In the flesh. This tall drink of water is Vargas."

Vincent ran a green skinned hand through matching hair and tried to control the panic in his voice. "Pleased to meet you. What can I do for you gentlemen?"

Vanisher leaned over the kitchen counter and smiled. "Got a job for you, Vince." The man he had called Vargas set down the can of green beans with a look of mild disgust.

"I lost my powers, Porter. Don't know what else I was ever good for."

Teleford just kept grinning. "Lost your powers? I got just the fix." He dug into a pocket and slapped three vials labelled MGH onto the counter. Vincent's eyes bulged from his head and he reached out a hand, but Vargas snatched his wrist in a painfully firm grip.

"What would you do, mutant, to regain your powers?"

His throat suddenly dry, Vincent licked his lips and raised his eyes to meet the powerful man before him.

"Anything."

A cold finger of wind slipped down the side of her neck and she shivered, burrowing herself deeper into the broken in leather of Logan's old jacket. There was still the faint smell of his cigars, even after so much time had passed, and she sighed at the fresh wave of grief the memory brought to the surface.

Central Park was as deserted as it ever got on a biting winter day, and Anna Raven, the mutant known as Rogue, was thankful she encountered fewer and fewer bodies the longer she walked the twisted maze of sidewalks. The fewer people, the less chance of being recognized, a recent hazard of her job.

At the behest of Steve Rogers, the original Captain America and her boss, she had become the very public face of a new squad of Avengers. Rogue had been a superhero most of her adult life, usually in the company of her mutant family the X-Men, but that team had been decidedly more clandestine in its operations. Smiling pretty for the cameras as the Avengers' token mutant had taken some getting used to.

Exhaling crossly, she tugged her beanie down to make sure the unique white stripe that tangled its way through her auburn curls was contained. She would still be with the X-Men if those bastard Inhumans and their Terrigen Mist poison hadn't fractured the team and sent them scrambling who knew where. The roving cloud of mist that granted abilities to the Inhumans, another sect of the super-powered, killed those with the mutant gene, or worse, and what was left of mutantkind had been forced to make some tough choices just to survive.

Her arm ached and chafed beneath the fabric of her flannel shirt and leather jacket. The mist played havoc with her own cocktail of mutant genes that were now confused and infused with a hefty shot of ions courtesy of her former teammate Wonderman, Simon Williams. For her, any contact with the mists flared up a rash of blisters that the alarmist human public affectionately referred to as M-Pox. So far, the rash could only be soothed by a dose of experimental medication. Anna could have turned tail and ran, too, no one would have blamed her, but it wasn't in her to go belly up and quit. She was stubborn, a fighter born and bred, and Logan had trusted these Avengers, trusted Rogers and what he could do. Her best chance at making a difference lay with Earth's mightiest heroes, but her heart ached every day when she thought of her friends, her family, of Remy…Remy LeBeau, the mutant thief Gambit and the love of her life, though currently her estranged love. She knew he hadn't gone into hiding with Storm and the rest, but she didn't know exactly where he was. It had been months since they had spoken. Was he all right?

A soft popping noise snapped her from the rhythmic fall of her own footsteps.

"Fancy meeting you here…"

Skidding to a stop, she turned to the voice and started in surprise. "Vanisher?"

The gangly mutant was seated on the back of a nearby park bench, his long legs perched on the seat. A red and white striped stocking hat covered his normally shaved head, and his face was tattooed in thick, horizontal blocks. Teleford Porter, who had last been seen helping out Logan's squad of X-Force. Logan sure as hell hadn't trusted the man any further than he could throw him, and Vanisher's sudden presence raised the hackles on her neck, but thanks to Simon she was superstrong, invulnerable, and could fly away before he could even bat an eye or use his teleportation powers. Despite her unease, it was nice after all these months to see a fellow mutant, so she stepped forward.

"Good to see you're still breathin'. Nobody knew what happened to you, you just…"

"Disappeared?" A grin fragmented the tattooed face. "Hey, it's what I do, right?" The cold air swirled snowflakes between them.

Rogue could probably count the number of times she had spoken to Vanisher on one hand, and the pair of mutants regarded each other awkwardly. "What brings you to the Big Apple, sugar? Touring the mist cloud?"

The man's eyes were bright white against a grid of black. "Something like that. So, look at you! Avengers, huh? Big time celebrity shit. D'you think my friend could get an autograph?"

"Friend?"

There was the crunch of snow behind her. She whipped and her green eyes found a man with skin to match. Mesmero! The thought drowned in molasses as fast as it formed. A hypnotist, the most powerful that had ever lived, and she was caught like a fly in his web, unable to move her body, though inside she fought and snarled as hard as she could.

Vanisher stood on the seat of the park bench and hopped to the ground. He strode towards them and waved a hand in front of Rogue's vacant eyes. "Is she…?"

Mesmero crossed his armed and scowled at Vanisher. "Under my control, as long as your stuff is as good as you say." His smile rivaled the winter temp. "She can hear what you say, but there's nothing she can do about it."

Laying a heavy hand on Mesmero's shoulder, Vanisher gingerly touched Rogue with the other. "Sorry, Rogue, but every tourist loves a good souvenir."

The trio disappeared in a flash.