“You have to include a picture?” asked Logan, looking at Remy and Piotr.

Piotr nodded solemnly, his face slightly red from alcohol. In the back of his mind, Logan made a note to call him a cab-- the Russian had been in America too long. Wait, was he Russian? Maybe Logan had one too many himself. Actually, he knew he did, considering how he was actually signing up for online dating. Ugh. Thank god he could write this off as him simply being drunk.

“How else they gon’ know what you look like, homme?” Remy took a swig and patted Logan on the back. Nudging at Logan’s shoulder to move aside, Remy took the mouse from his friend and poised the tiny arrow over the picture icon. “Remy sure you got a picture on here... Right?” He eyed Logan nervously. Logan was single, so who knew what kind of... pictures... he saved on his computer. He was certain most of them would be of his travels, landscapes, and random shots from personal projects he occasionally took on, but on the off chance there was porn... “Right?”

Logan grumbled something and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Y’ guess?” Remy repeated. He took a deep breath and clicked the tiny camera. It quickly opened up and Remy began scrolling through the photographs. It was a relief, really, seeing the boring photographs. “Lots of snow,” he joked, “maybe we could include in y’ profile that you travel.”

Piotr set his beer down and pointed eagerly at the screen. “That one. You look,” he paused, searching for the word, “happy.”

Logan furrowed his brows and stared at the picture. “Course I look happy. I’m smiling!”

Piotr snorted. “This one is different. You don’t look pissed off.” He straightened up and looked at Remy. “It is a good picture,” he continued. Remy faced Piotr, his head tipped. “He’ll have a better chance, no?”

Remy nodded, his eyes wide. “Yeah.” Remy bent down, dragging the picture to the small, grey box. After a moment, the picture formatted to the box. It was official: Logan_Howlett36 was officially on a dating website. Remy stood straight, a proud smile on his face. It hadn’t taken much convincing, and now it would only be a matter of time before Logan was dating again.

“This is stupid,” grumbled Logan.

“Why is this stupid, Logan?” Piotr asked. He waited for Logan to answer, though he knew exactly what his Canadian friend would say. “Lots of single people meet this way. There is no shame.”

Logan snorted. There might not be shame for Piotr and the million other singles who were looking, but this was so... different. Never before had Logan fallen for something so quickly, and now he was out the ten bucks it’d taken to sign up for a month. The first twenty matches were free, but only after you paid ten bucks-- what a racket! Logan already felt like a sucker and he knew when those matches only led to women who wanted a quick lay, he’d feel even worse.

“This is so stupid.”



“Too late!” Marie said cheerfully. “You’re already up.”

Ororo stared at her profile and wondered if there was something wrong with it. She just knew that at some point, someone was going to see her profile, read her biography, look at her picture, and then see her age. It all felt so personal and invasive. She’d given too much away! Nobody read African poetry!- most people thought Africa was a country! She just knew her dates were going to be a wreck. Burying her face into her brown hands, Ororo let out a frustrated groan.

“Relax, Ro. Here,” Marie handed Ororo a half empty glass of red wine, “drink. You’ll feel better.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled. Ororo guzzled down the wine then peeked back at the screen. She reread the little paragraph and scrutinized the fragmented sentences. Who was going to take her serious when she said “Like poetry. Avid gardner.” This wasn’t a twitter account and she wasn’t fifteen. This... stupidity was going to attract every mouth breather within a ten mile radius. Ugh. She hoped they didn’t have bad breath and seven kids.

Oh, god.

“What if they have kids?” she panicked.

Marie paused before bursting out into laughter. “I thought you were doing this because you wanted kids? Biological clock? Tick, tick, tick?” Marie repeated, holding her wine and settling on the table beside the laptop. She sighed and dropped her head back. “You’re overthinkin’ this.” She turned her head and looked at Ororo, a kind smile on her face. “We won’t tell Jean if you don’t want--”

“Thank you,” Ororo replied quickly, looking at her wine glass. Her heart made that ugly clench and she felt her cheeks burn. She never begrudged Jean’s happiness, but she was insanely jealous. Twenty nine, married happily for four years, and now three weeks pregnant. Ororo nearly died when she heard the news. “I mean, we can tell her only after I get the diamond ring. Or never.”

“Or never!” Marie giggled. She slid off Ororo’s table and kicked off her heels. “Damn, where’s that Chinese?” Marie peeked out the window, checking for the delivery person. This was New York! Wasn’t there like, a law against making it illegal for delivery food to take more than ten minutes to arrive? She looked back at Ororo. Ororo worked for the mayor-- maybe she could get something worked out.

“They there yet?” asked Ororo, still staring the small picture down. She contemplated changing it. Maybe she should be smiling? The whole, seductive wink thing was really juvenile. She opened her pictures and began searching for one good picture. There was one of her in her bikini, but that was from her trip to Wakanda and she still really hated her stupid ex. Three years and no pay off! Long distance relationships were sometimes more work than they were worth, she decided.

“Not yet,” Marie said, still looking.

Ororo cropped her body out, trying to keep only her shoulders and up in the picture. It wasn’t as though she was ashamed of her body, she just wanted to focus on her face. There was limited space and she didn’t want it to be awkwardly cut and squished. When it wouldn’t fit, she sighed. She moved onto another picture-- one of her on a hike. She cocked her head, thinking. She looked amazing, Ororo had to admit. The sunlight was hitting her in a perfect angle and her smile was beatific. It had better be, too, considering the literal years of orthodontist appointments. This one was it.

“I’m sure it’ll only be a moment.” Ororo dragged the picture, waited for it to be formatted, then clicked SAVE. It was official. OroroMunro30 was a MinglingSingle (dot-com) who liked poetry and gardened avidly.

Hopefully she’d find someone.



While her pasta sauce simmered, Ororo read her emails. Ever since the mayor, her boss, announced an initiative to not only drum up police presence but flood poor/failing schools with funds in an effort to decrease crime, several companies tried to get aligned with the project. Ororo knew it was just a ploy to make money and drum up their list of clientele-- she was positive they didn’t care about who was actually helped so long as it helped their bank accounts. That didn’t mean she wasn’t considering it. Tax increases were never popular.

She starred them, answered a few quickly, and opened her calendar to set up conference dates. If there was anything Ororo was proud of, it was her ability to excel at her job. She was a natural born leader, so it made sense she became a grey-suit. And it meant she could actually bring about some real change in the world. She always dreamt of having a job where she could help the poor, fight crime, and wear cute shoes. (Okay, so maybe the last part was a little vain, but at least she was helping the world in some way, right?)

Near the bottom of her emails, there was one she hadn’t really expected to see.

That stupid dating website sent her an email. She hadn’t been on for two weeks on purpose, but apparently there were several dates waiting for her. She rolled her eyes and tried to deny the fact that she was honestly a little excited. Were there actually dates waiting for her? Biting her lip, she debated with herself: Answer them now or wait till dinner was finished?

With a smile she would later deny, she opted to wait for dinner. She was usually on her computer as she ate-- she was a busy woman and it did not meant she got lonely during dinner-- so reading dopey love notes would be entertaining. She hurried to her bedroom, grabbed the laptop and charger, and hurried back to her kitchen. Her pasta couldn’t have been finished sooner.

She read through the first six messages with laughing groans. They were all pretty similar: “Hey, sexy. If you’re looking for a nice guy...” She snorted when she saw their hats and read their biographies. She wasn’t settling for some sexist pig who had zero game. She wasn’t disheartened at all; the optional quiz she took did say not every match would lead to happily ever after.

There were a few scattered possibilities. She liked the ones who tried talking to her first, commented on her biography, or introduced themselves first. That was kind of nice. And then, at the very end, there was a name she couldn’t quite place. She clicked his profile and read through what was there. He hadn’t tried to send her a message, but he was one of her matches.

“Hm.” She traced the rim of her wine glass and toyed with the trackpad, uncertain if she should send him a message first. He-- James Logan Howlett-- was handsome in that rugged sense. Most of the men who messaged her were handsome, but this guy was... Wow. On principle, Ororo tried to avoid talking to people just based on how attractive they were. She gave everyone a chance! But him...

She thought about what to say to him, but the only thing they had in common was their interest in nature. It was silly since nature was such a broad subject. They could talk about hiking, gardening, landscaping, the weather, pollution, how sexy he looked in his picture, the different types of “nature” in the city, which parks had the best foliage, but all she could think about was how dorky she would sound. How lame would she sound shooting him a message saying “I noticed you like nature. I like plants, too! I have a fern in my townhouse!” It was so pathetic.

She groaned. Flirting was so hard! Why couldn’t she just have that natural talent of talking to men over the internet? She talked to men all day at work, but now that she had to be the aggressor, she felt so awkward. Maybe she was over thinking this.

Slamming back the legs of her wine, she tapped out a message: Hi, I’m Ororo. I noticed you liked nature. I, too, like plants. I garden sometimes and I was wondering if you’d like to talk about gardening?

She stared at her screen and hated how decidedly un-sexy or flirty her message was, but she wasn’t about to type something that sounded forced. And what kind of sexy message could you make about gardening?-- I’d love if you planted some seeds in my soil? Gross.

With a heavy sigh, she sent him the message. At least she had her pasta to console her.



“...Was wondering if you’d like to talk about gardening?” read Logan. “What the fuck...?” He read the message over again and tried to figure out if this was an opening to a conversation or discussion about work. He clicked her profile and was once again confused. She was drop-dead gorgeous so why was she acting so awkward? Wait... was he being cat-fished or some shit like that? She liked gardening, read poetry, and owned a cat. He read her profile once more and was confused if she was a real person or a really boring.

He quickly typed his response: Sure, I like nature, but I’m not really big on gardening. I mostly enjoying hiking and seeing nature that way.

He pressed sent and went back to eating. He read through several other messages-- lots of them lewd-- and felt a sense of despair. All the women he was matched with were kind of off. All of them were pretty, but they were all missing something. Logan knew he was being judgmental since they had a character limit for their profiles, but still. Would it hurt them to be a little more interesting?

There was a chiming sound and Logan looked at his computer in surprise. She responded.

OroroMunro30: I like hiking, too. I feel like I’ve traveled most of the Appalachian trails. What about you?

Huh.

Logan responded, letting her know he’d also hiked most of those trails and a few other. Something about the way she said it made her seem a little self righteous, though. And he still felt like she was a little... dull. He sent her a response, and it didn’t take long before they started a small correspondence about hiking trails and the amount of times they got caught in random storms and how they both occasionally forgot to bring water bottles and why couldn’t they start making water fountains along the trails? Through it all, Logan kept telling himself she was still a little boring.

An hour passed before he realized it.


Author's Note: I totally didn't put a disclaimer but
DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING RECOGNIZABLE OR ANYTHING THAT LOOKS LIKE IT COULD BELONG TO SOMEONE. PLEASE DON'T SUE- I'M A BROKE COLLEGE STUDENT AND I EAT RAMEN AND APPLES FOR DINNER.





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