There are plenty of things that Remy is afraid of. He’ll rarely admit to those things in order to keep up appearances, especially with those he doesn’t know very well. But one thing, or person, that he won’t deny being afraid of is Nathaniel Essex who is better known by the name Sinister. Remy found out the hard way that Sinister was a man to be feared and not someone to trust or do business with.
He’d been young and naive when he’d first been approached by Sinister for work. At this point in his life Remy had been forced to leave home and make his own way in the world. But what could he do as a nineteen year old mutant with no one else in the world to help him? Sinister offered a place to sleep, food, and a way for Remy to better control his immense kinetic energy. It all sounded too good to be true. Little did he know Sinister had other things in mind for Remy to do in order to earn his keep.
Sinister sent him on various assignments doing what he did best: steal. Remy thought it would have been stealing elegant jewels and the like but instead they were various journals which helped Sinister with his little ‘projects’.
After a bit of time came Sinister’s biggest request for helping Remy out. He asked the young cajun to lead his team of marauders through the morlock tunnels underground. Remy thought it was a simple request, that Sinister would help those people the way the scientist had helped him.
He had no idea what was in store for him down in those tunnels.
The moment they found the morlocks Sabretooth and the rest of the marauders went on a killing spree. Remy was mortified at the bloodshed and the screams that echoed all around him. He tried to defend the morlocks, to stop their deaths, but he was nearly gutted by Sabretooth for his troubles. Remy was frozen in place and only able to bear witness to every scream, gunshot fired, and every spatter of blood that painted the tunnel walls. Sabretooth had called him pathetic and slashed him open from lower ribs to his hip in an attempt to kill Remy since his purpose had been served.
He struggled to move and stay awake as he lost blood. Remy looked for a way out and on the way he ran into a little girl who was crying over her dying mother. The mother begged Remy to save her daughter, and with all of his remaining strength he took the little girl to hide. She screamed and cried out for her mother as he took her away, but Remy was determined to save at least one person from this nightmare. The two of them managed to get far enough away from the carnage that the girl, Sarah was her name, wouldn’t witness any of it. Remy could still hear it all due to the echo and felt every bit of fear from the morlocks. It was overwhelming and showed no signs of stopping soon.
Sarah was crying in his arms, terrified and confused. Remy tried to calm her, holding her close and trying to distract both of them from the blood curdling screams and haunting laughter.
“Shhh... It’s all gonna be okay, Sarah... I ain’t gonna let ‘em hurt you, petit,” he murmured to her. He would never forget the way she desperately clung to him despite him still bleeding. Remy hadn’t noticed when he started crying.
“I know it might not mean much ta you now, petit, but I jus’... I jus’ wanna let you know... I’m sorry... I’m so sorry...”
When he was much, much younger, his worst fear in the world was chickens.
Thinking back, he’s not sure why that was. It may have been the ‘chickens are dinosaurs’ thing, since he was also scared of dinosaurs back then. There may not have even been a ‘valid’ reason for it. He just vividly remembers a kindergarten field trip to a petting zoo that ended with him screaming for his mom because a chicken pecked his hand.
His worst fears have changed since then (Brian, failure, Ross, himself), but some fears, however small, still stick around.
“Bruce, it’s a chicken,” Clint says, eyebrows raised. “Do you not know what that is?”
Bruce shushes him, crouching in front of a cage and carefully watching the animal inside. Their dog play date/shopping trip had been going well until Bruce realized that the store had a caged chicken by the bird section, and he’d abandoned his cart to go stare at it.
(David, now obsessed with Lucky, does not share Bruce’s concerns, nor does he follow him to the cage. His only concerns are snuffling Lucky’s face and making a general adorable nuisance of himself.)
As he watches it, the chicken turns to meet his gaze, and it blinks. He flinches. He hears Clint snort, and then the shutter sound of a phone camera. Everyone will see it soon, and everyone will know.
He tries to play it off by standing casually, except the chicken clucks and he’s not sure if he screamed or if the noise came from some other animal, but Clint can’t breathe because of how hard he’s laughing as Bruce pushes him out of the store.
Decked out in snow flake-patterned swim trunks, blue shades, and a noticeable happy trail, Bobby threw his Frozen themed beach towels over his shoulder and made his way from his room. Xavier had bought out half of the stylish beachfront hotel situated just a short walk from the ocean. It was only for one weekend, but it felt necessary. August was nearing its end. The school's staff had agreed, the kids needed a day for fun before hitting the books and the staff needed a day to relax before the sleepless nights of grading papers and battling super villains became the X-Men's existence once more.
Bobby didn't expect the beaches to be so pristine, but the price tags on local food and souvenirs told him Long Branch was more of a rich person's escape than other stops along the Jersey shore. It seemed like the kind of place where his parents would vacation, where well-off retirees listened to Jimmy Buffet and sipped rum and cokes. It wasn't a private beach, but it might as well have been. The bourgeois beach goers took one look at the mutants invading—with all their scales, fur, tails, and added limbs—and fled. As he dropped down into the hot sands, Bobby created a cool chill around his feet, leaving wet footprints in the sands with every step he took. Xavier's residents were already camping out in the shade beneath abandoned parasols, playing volleyball, swimming, boogie boarding, or building castles and moats. The youngest among them were burying Hank in the sand as he read Hawking. The fliers were racing in the skies above with Warren the doting mother bird not far behind. Bobby couldn't help but smile at the sight of everyone seemingly without a care.
With one swift motion, Bobby threw his towel over the sand. As he squatted down to weigh his towel down with his sandals, Bobby looked over to see a familiar figure passing by. "Taking a dip?" he asked.
