Disclaimer: This was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend...and I don't want to claim the song used, but I should - to reassure all who read this that the song isn't real. All characters belong to Marvel.
1992
By Mice
"This sucks."
"Does not."
"My hands are covered in dust."
"Are not."
"Are too! I can't touch anything without feeling dirty!"
"...I'm so sorry no one explained puberty to you."
Jubilee kicked Bobby's shin bone. It hurt because heels were back in this season.
"And I'm so sorry it hasn't happened for you yet."
Jubilee kicked Bobby's shin bone again. It hurt because of the previous bruise.
"Will you stop that!"
"I'll stop when we can get out of here!" Jubilee gestured to the bins Bobby was pouring over. "I hate music re-salers. Have you not gotten the upgrade, Grandma Moses? With a few clicks of a mouse, you can aquire free music! Burn them onto disc! For free! No dust!"
"You don't understand, Jubilee. There's something about buying the music, something that makes you glow, something that makes you satisfied, something that--"
"Your car doesn't have a CD player in it, does it?" Jubilee droned while pointing to a stack of cassette tapes by Bobby.
"Ford Festivas are not known for being technologically advanced."
"I am never shopping with you ever again."
"Music shopping isn't so bad - "
"Aside from the fact it is? Wearing the bag over my head to get here was uncomfortable. What's wrong, Bobby, was the Geo Metro out of reach?"
"The Geo, I'll have you know, was a 1991. The Festiva was won on a game show Alex Trebek hosted."
"Yeah, but--"
"ALEX TREBEK, Jubilee. Don't make me repeat the name of the man with the moustache."
Jubilee left Bobby and began to browse the "33 for $1.00" bin of cassettes, grumbling, "John Oates could kick Trebek to the curb."
She picked around a few selections before becoming quite certain that she saw a brown recluse spider in the bin. She yelped as she quickly withdrew her hand and throwing the tape that was in her hand directly at the head of Bobby Drake.
"Hey!"
"Spider."
"Spider?"
"Spider."
"Spider!"
"Spider--"
"SPIDER!"
"Spiiderrr...!"
"Spider! Spider! Spider!"
"...spider?"
"Spider..."
"...Potato chip."
Bobby touched his head where the cassette had beamed him. "Am I bleeding?"
"No, doesn't look it..."
Bobby held up the cassette to chastize Jubilee. "Look, this is not a CD! Cassettes have hard edges and are not to be flung at people! Do you want me to call my mother and give you the talk she gave me when Little Bobby Sherman got bored with lawn darts and used his father's cassette tapes - and the fact that he did and now has a prosthetic leg are completely related?"
Jubilee snatched the tape from Bobby's hand. "Dude, does every boy band from the early nineties have to have everyone with a long haired mullet?"
"It was a time of line dancing, J. Long haired mullets were required."
" This guy's wearing a bolo tie...and a creepy moustache...huh."
"What?"
"Just wondering, does every early nineties boy band have someone that looks like Gambit?"
Bobby nodded. "Never really thought about it, but they all did pretty much look rat like and wore Speedos..."
"It says that the band's name is "The Beau"."
Bobby broke out into a grin. "I remember The Beau! I was fourteen and I was slow dancing with Janice Tongas to "A Hole in My Ace" and she let me put my hands on her--"
"Don't go all Michael Jackson on me, Perv."
"Yeah, The Beau. Man, I hated them."
"I thought you liked them."
"I liked Janice Tongas'--"
"ASSAULT! ASSAULT!"
"Wait..."
"What?"
"This guy...he doesn't just look like Gambit..."
Bobby strolled into Hank's lap holding something in his right hand. He was glowing, Hank noticed right away. That meant sex or..."What did you and Jubilee do now?"
"Shopping for music."
"You found something interesting?"
"Oh, my, yes." Bobby threw the cassette on Hank's desk.
""The Beau"?"
"Do you remember them?"
"I cannot recall..."
"Don't you remember that one time when you and Carol Lasten were dancing and there was this crappy song playing -- "
"1992 - she let me put my hands on her--"
"That's them."
"Huh. I always thought that it was New Kids on the Block." Hank motioned to Bobby's other hand. "What's that?"
Bobby threw it Hank, who caught them. It was soft. "The Speedo of the lead singer of The Beau."
"Who wears Speedos anymore? The only person who wears Speedos is--" Hank promptly dropped them. "You were busy this afternoon, I take it?"
Remy LeBeau strolled onto the patio by the pool, intending on showing off his new yellow Speedo and flexing a manly bit. Ah, it was good to be young, fit, and gorgeous. It was days like today that he was sure the sun was invented with him in mind and no one else.
He settled onto a lounge chair by the pool and put on a pair of sunglasses to further enhance his good looks. "If only I had a gold chain..." he thought to himself. "Life would be good."
During his preperation, he heard a few scuffles and giggles. He dismissed it to it being his imagination. Even if they did sound like the manaical giggles of Bobby and Jubilee. Such a thing was usually a sign of something bad about to happen. So bad that not only did Hank post a lab rule about Bobby and Jubilee not being allowed to giggle near his lab (he had even had it engraved in 18pt font on a placard), they were not allowed to giggle together around water, earth, or fire. There was talk about banning them from air, but both seemed to need to breathe.
Even knowing all this, Remy went out stretching out and relaxing in the sun.
There was a reason Remy LeBeau never lead the X-Men.
"Bobby?"
"Yes, Jubilee?"
"I'm so glad that I did sound for the school play last year."
"So am I, Jubilee."
Those who were at home in the mansion weren't too surprised to hear an elaborate sound system fill the air with crappy early 90's boy band music, especially after they heard Bobby and Jubilee giggling (though not Hank, as Hank was in the lab, and there was to be no giggling there). What did surprise them was the familiarity of the voice...and the memory of slow dancing to this song and being allowed to put their hands on--
"ASSUALT!"
--so this was the song.
"Girl...I was bettin' high on our hand...I thought dat we couldn't lose...I guess de odds...I guess de odds were against us, Chere...but wherever you are, know dat I love you and dat one day, Fate will draw us...another hand."
That was just the spoken intro. This was the part that was sung. "Sung", rather.
"I wasn't playing with a full deck
Until you came and shuffled me.
You dealt me a hand that couldn't lose
,
But you had a bluff that forced me to choose.
I have a hole in my ace
I'm reminded all over the place
Of my Queen of Hearts
And how she played her part
In the hole in my ace..."
"So what happened that you got Remy's Speedos, and please tell me that he isn't naked now..."
"Oh, apparently, a lot of the girls in the mansion were first groped to this song and for some strange reason, instead of pummeling him - like I would have done because I really hated The Beau - they pelted him with panties."
"Panties?"
"Yeah, panties."
;"And you took the Speedos in recompense?"
"No, uhm, that was Kitty."
"Kitty?"
"She apparently had a lot of teen magazines and one mentioned that he had a birthmark...ah, down there and there was something that had to do with a trivia question, someone's bat mitzvah and a flashing of someone's grandfather as a consequence...I don't remember as she was crying when telling us, but at the end of it, Kitty whipped them off and was on the phone tracking someone down in Chicago..."
The next day, Hank called the engraver to add the addendum to his engraved "Do Not Do the Following in the Lab" sign to include, "No previously worn Speedos worn by horrendous boy bands of the 90's are allowed."