Summary: Ororo and Logan return to the fold and pick up where they left off in “Consolation Prizes.” The dust hasn’t settled yet at the School for Gifted Youngsters. These two aren’t ready to settle for anything less than a soulmate, either. Back story gleaned from
Uncanny X-Men, pretty much any issue between #173 and #200, as well as the
Kitty Pryde and Wolverine mini-series.
Categories: General Characters: None
Genres: Romance, Angst
Warnings: Adult language
Challenges: Series: None
Chapters: 6
Completed: Yes
Word count: 36218
Read: 35504
Published: 06-09-06
Updated: 06-22-07
1. Cornered by OriginalCeenote
2. New Scars by OriginalCeenote
3. Bruised by OriginalCeenote
4. Damaged by OriginalCeenote
5. Tuck Tail and Run by OriginalCeenote
6. Licking Your Wounds by OriginalCeenote
Cornered by OriginalCeenote
Disclaimer: Marvel owns the X-Men, I don't; wish they'd write some stories about them that didn't suck lately...
New York, John F Kennedy Airport, downstairs receiving area:
“What was the flight number again?”
“Check those little TVs again; we can wait for them to come downstairs, over here by the carousels.”
“We shouldn’t have to wait long; Logan always travels light.”
“You forget what a clothes horse Ororo has become, mein freund.” Peter chuckled under his breath. His eyes scanned the colorful airline banners lining the walls as he wiggled circulation back into his toes within the confines of his stiff winter boots.
“Her new look was a real eye opener, eh, tovarisch?” That wasn’t what I expected.”
“None of us saw that coming.” Kurt’s eyes glowed their customary, eerie yellow above the edge of his broad muffler. It was relatively drafty in the open, spacious check-in lobby of the airport, but Kurt swaddled himself in concealing layers of winter clothes to hide his distinctive physical traits. Mittens covered his three-fingered hands, a wool fisherman’s cap was pulled down over the peaks of his pointed ears, and his trench coat hid his prehensile tail from view. To the casual onlooker, he looked like any other New Yorker dressed for early spring.
“I wish Katya would have changed her mind and come with us.”
“She may not be ready yet. It was a lot for her to absorb.”
“The rest of us managed just fine.” Peter’s jaw was set in stubborn lines.
“Do I detect trouble in paradise?” Kurt eyed him askance.
“I don’t want Katya to make a mistake that she may regret. Don’t get me wrong; she’s very, very mature for her age sometimes. But I feel Katya is throwing away a special friendship with the one person who truly doesn’t deserve it. We’re a school, tovarisch. Sometimes we’re even a team. But Ororo has always made it feel a little more like a family.” Peter didn’t want to utter his thoughts aloud that really bothered him: Kitty was acting like a spoiled brat.
“Kitty’s been through a lot this year. Her parents’ separation was hard on her, and that was the tip of the iceberg. And poor Ororo! Mein Gott, if anyone is entitled to indulge in a momentary brush with madness…”
“Madness?” Peter’s brow quirked. He wouldn’t have gone that far.
“You know what I mean. Wild haircut aside, Ororo’s had a lot on her mind for some time, and many have actually occupied it, literally. Herr Dracula, the Brood, the White Queen…and all she did was cut her hair?” The two men were silent for a few minutes, stepping aside as they were buffeted by the passengers rummaging through the carousels for their luggage. “Sometimes, Peter…it amazes me that any of us come back, that we continue to fight for the dream. Or that we manage to do it without losing ourselves in the shuffle.”
“Kurt?”
“Ja?”
“I truly hope we haven’t lost her. The changes seem more than skin deep.” Peter checked his watch. “I am afraid for her.”
“Don’t be. To quote Logan, on one of many times that he’s said it, ‘there’s no one else I’d rather have in my corner’ than Storm.”
Nearby, in the terminal tunnel:
“You can stop fussing over me, Logan, I’m fine now.”
“Yer practically dead on yer feet.” Logan’s grip was firm and unrelenting on her elbow; Ororo silently gave thanks for his support, which made it easier to continue their stroll up the ramp. Logan drilled his pinky into his ear canal, trying to unpop it. His enhanced hearing made the impression of ‘hearing everything through a tunnel’ even worse, a jumbled cacophony that assaulted him from every direction. He couldn’t wait to have a smoke and a decent beer. “Quit bein’ so stubborn an’ let me help ya, woman!” Ororo sighed helplessly as Logan’s arm wrapped itself around her narrow waist, taking care not to let his palm rub against the thick bandage over her ribs. The faint, faded scent of his aftershave mingled with the other “airplane” odors that lingered on both of their clothing and in their hair.
“If you insist,” she tsked. A look of relief flooded her features as they made their way into the waiting area of the next incoming flight. The sky was dotted with stars, and the red and white lights of jets taking flight winked in and out of the darkness. Free. Ororo was finally free of that confining, stuffy, airless little heap, no longer to be tortured by the clouds that she couldn’t touch. Ororo glanced at Logan, taking in the drowsy set of his deep-set black eyes. His healing factor couldn’t compensate for the slight bags beneath them; she knew he barely slept. The foolish, blasted man had put her comfort before his the entire flight. Ororo woke up sprawled across his lap, the rough denim seam of his Levi’s pressed into her cheek, his solid bulk warmed by the press of her limp body. The light caress of his fingers through her hair, tickling her scalp teased her from sleep. His wide, thick-knuckled hand stroked her from shoulder to elbow. Ororo squirmed, surprised to find herself tucked beneath the scratchy flannel airline blanket.
“Warm enough, darlin’?” Ororo shifted, turning herself back to face his amused look, her blue eyes full of questions she wasn’t sure she wanted the answers to.
“Logan…tell me I didn’t fall asleep on you!”
“Like the proverbial log.”
“Goddess! How long?”
“Past eight hours or so. Ya zonked out, and ya were out like a light. Didn’t miss much but a meal that I wouldn’t feed a dog, some beer nuts, and some flat ginger ale. I told ‘em ta leave yer soda in the can for ya so ya could have it later.” Logan’s smile was gentle but sly, the corners of his eyes crinkling at her consternation and pinkening cheeks.
“Ohhhh, I feel so…arrrggh!” She rubbed her eyes and her hand swiped through a thin track of drool cooling on her cheek. She made another faint noise of disgust as she used the edge of the blanket to rub out the matching drool spot on his jeans, until she realized she was rubbing his thigh more vigorously than was ladylike, considering the circumstances. “You shouldn’t have let me take such advantage like that!”
“The day I don’t let a woman ‘take advantage of me’ by drapin’ herself over me and settling in for a good long snuggle is the day I stop being a red-blooded man, ‘Roro. Relax. No harm done. These jeans of mine have been through worse.” And now his clothes had the added side benefit of carrying her earthy, sweet scent. No complaints.
Ororo was still exhausted, but she finally had her wits about her, and she was anxious to get things back on familiar footing. The rest of the flight found them playing a few last rounds of cards, none of which Ororo tried very hard to win. Logan surprised her when he reached for her hand as the plane tilted into its landing spiral.
“I hate heights,” he offered by way of explanation.
“I loathe tight spaces,” she volleyed back, squeezing his fingers. They both leaned toward the tiny window and watched the clouds wrap their misty mass around the jet’s hull.
*****
“I can manage just fine now.”
“I know ya can.” They boarded the escalator, and Ororo fell into step with Logan, pressed closely against his side. “Watch yer step.”
“I can’t wait to get back to my loft.”
“Ya might hafta wait a little longer, darlin’, ya haven’t eaten anything yet, and I’m ready ta sink my teeth into anything that ain’t nailed down.” He also needed that smoke, so badly his knuckles itched. “But yer in luck, ‘Roro, there’s Petey and Kurt!” The look of relieved delight warmed her face, and Ororo raised her hand to limply wave them over.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes, liebchen,” Kurt grinned, until he saw how Ororo sagged against Logan for support. “Are you all right?”
“She’s hanging on by a thread. Pete’s here’s the claim ticket, look for the bags, make yerself useful, willya?”
“Hullo, Kurt; hullo, little brother.”
“I’ll wait for your luggage, Ororo.” Peter threw an added “You were missed” over his shoulder on this way out.
“Kurt…where’s Kitten?”
“She’s fine,” Kurt answered, too quickly. “She’s waiting for us back at the estate. She wanted to continue working on a program with her young friend, Douglas, and they stayed at the library until it closed.” Kurt stroked Ororo’s cheek with his mittened hand. “How was the flight?”
“Far too long.” Kurt could have sworn Logan growled at him under his breath when he touched Ororo. “It feels good to stretch my legs, my friend.” Kurt’s own skeleton was flexible and compact, so tight spaces didn’t pose much of a problem for him, but he automatically sympathized with Ororo as he drank in her endlessly long legs encased in the black raw silk trousers. It was a tad more elegant than the black leather, he mused. Obviously the Mohawk hadn’t miraculously changed back to hair flowing down her back, however, as Ororo unwrapped her scarf from her head, revealing the flamboyant white plume.
Yes, it was probably better than Kitty hadn’t come, after all. That didn’t hide the fact that Ororo was troubled by her absence.
Peter arrived with their luggage, hefting the carry-on bag, suitcase, and garment bag easily. “We parked in the lower level. Ororo, are you fine with the walk?”
“You’re already carrying the luggage, Peter; I don’t expect you to carry me, too.”
“Don’t put it past me ta do just that, darlin’. Ya still ain’t up to full strength yet.”
“Full strength? What happened?”
“Long story, ‘Elf. We’ll save it fer the ride home. But first, let’s hit a Mickey Dee’s. ‘Roro missed dinner.” Ororo was about to object, not wanting to delay them any further in the traffic, but her growling stomach made up everyone’s mind, and they stopped at the first fast food stop when they pulled off of the off-ramp.
New Scars by OriginalCeenote
“It wouldn’t have killed ya to meet ‘em at the airport, Katya.”
“Not like it’s killing anyone for me to stay here. Besides, I had some work to finish with Doug, we had to look up a few things on the library’s computer before they closed.”
“Sure. Library. Whatever floats your boat.” Inwardly, Illyana pondered the questionable need to use the library computers, when the school was equipped with much more current hardware.
“Whatever floats my boat? ‘Yana, why’re you giving me the third degree? I had work to do with Doug!”
“And you just had to do it tonight?”
“Yes. Yes, I did.” Illyana rolled her wide-set blue eyes in defeat and buried her nose in Kitty’s very dog-eared copy of Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey.
“More importantly…you just had to hang out with Doug tonight?”
“Okayyyy…let’s say we pretend for, oh, about thirty seconds that this is any of your business, Snowflake, but what does it matter that I was hanging out with Doug? He’s a buddy. Like you. I mopped the floor with him at Galaga last week, for cripe’s sake!”
“A buddy like me? Last time I checked, I wasn’t Ricky Schroeder’s smarter, hunkier twin. Doug’s not a buddy like me.”
“What...DOUG?” Kitty removed her small hoop earrings and tossed them onto her jewelry tray. “Are you kidding me?”
“No. You’re kidding you. You spend a lot of time with him. He’s cute. He’s nice. His eyes do that funny thing that they do when a guy likes you; they follow you in and out of a room.”
“Funny thing? Get outta here! His eyes don’t do a funny thing. I know a funny thing when I see one…”
“Y’know, Katya, back when I was a little kid ““
“All of a few months ago…” Kitty tsked, her voice muffled as she wriggled into her night shirt with a picture of Prince ironed onto the front of it.
“…don’t interrupt me. For some of us, the usual rules about time don’t apply. I practically aged in dog years.” Kitty emitted a snort as she gathered her unruly brown curls into a sloppy ponytail. “When I was little, and you used to tell me those fairy tales, I remember Piotr peeking around the corner every once in a while to see if you snuck him into the story as one of the characters again.”
“I didn’t do that! Are you gonna make your point?”
“Yes you did, and yes I am. Whenever Piotr would stop by and then leave, you used to watch him until he was out of sight. It was this funny little look, the way I used to like looking at the toys in the window of FAO Schwartz at Christmastime.”
“So???”
“So Doug’s looking like Christmas came early. It’s all over his face. He ‘likes you’ likes you.”
“Ohhh! ILLYANA! That’s…just…BULLSHIT!”
“S’true.”
“Nuh-UHH!” Kitty flipped over her shoulder.
“She turns tail and runs, as she turns as pink as my grandmother’s borscht!” Illyana chucked the book onto the floor and collapsed in giggles as Kitty back-flipped her the bird on her way to the bathroom.
Kitty let Illyana’s ramblings sink in as she squirted a generous blob of Colgate paste onto her blue Reach toothbrush.
“He so totally doesn’t like me like that,” she mumbled around a mouthful of foam.
“He does, too!” Kitty nearly choked as Illyana guffawed from the other side of the door. Kitty rinsed and spit, glaring at her own reflection as though it was Illyana staring back at her. She yanked open the door.
“Illyana…I love Peter. I’m over-the-moon, crazy-in-love with your brother.”
“Don’t I know it. Downright sickening, really. Just remember, you won’t keep him too easily if you play games with him. Keep “buddying around” with Doug Ramsey, and Piotr’ll start wondering if he’s just a buddy, too.” Illyana wasn’t laughing anymore.
“He’s not. He means a lot to me.” Kitty wasn’t, either.
“Katya?”
“Hmm?”
“I know it’s time for me to butt out…but it would have been nice if you went with him to the airport tonight.”
“I can see Logan in the morning. I’m just glad he came back,” Kitty mused. “He didn’t have to, either, all things considered.” She swung her legs up onto her bed and burrowed beneath the vellux blanket and chenille spread.
“Ororo brought him back,” Illyana pointed out.
“Wish she would have brought back the old Ororo, while she was at it.” Kitty tugged the covers up over her ears and flicked off her lamp. “G’night.” Illyana sighed heavily, wondering how and when she became the older, wiser of the two.
Outside, half an hour later:
“S’weird, bein’ back here again.” Logan reached into his shirt pocket for his cigars, and tugged his Zippo from his carry-on bag. He reached up and nudged his Stetson back from his forehead, staring at the expanse of manicured lawn through the garage doors. “Place hasn’t changed much.”
“A few things have changed. Scott’s still in Anchorage. He seems to like it there.”
“Don’t think it’s cause o’ the charming little shops an’ local color.”
“Madelyne seemed very nice. Scott’s quite taken with her.” Kurt fumbled with the latch on the trunk of the well-maintained Bentley.
“Helluva surprise ta spring on us,” Logan grumbled.
“He didn’t ‘spring’ anything on us.” Kurt narrowed his yellow eyes at his closest friend. Logan cocked one bushy eyebrow. “So she has red hair. She was very pretty…”
“Can it, ‘Elf. Even Lilandra was spooked. Can’t say as I blame her. That was Jeannie’s exact double, or I’m whistlin’ Dixie.”
“That’s impossible, tovarisch.”
“Tell that t’my nose. Ain’t never met two frails that smelled the same. Not ‘similar.’ Identical, bub.” Logan sucked a fortifying breath of cigar smoke into his lungs, chasing away the smell of the stale airplane upholstery and bathroom air freshener that permeated his clothes. He crossed to the other side of the car and opened the door, bending down to murmur “Roro? We’re back, darlin’, time ta get settled in. We’re home.”
“Mmmmmm.” Ororo’s face was propped against her curled fist, the unfinished remains of her dinner wrapped neatly in the paper bag on her lap. Logan had practically inhaled a Big Mac, barely tasting it in his haste to get something in his stomach. Her eyes fluttered open, meeting his with sleepy languor. “Logan,” she smiled. He returned the look, letting it move all the way up into his dark eyes.
“Lemme help ya outta there, Boss.” He reached for her hand and kept his hand protectively over her head to help her avoid bumping it against the doorframe. Kurt was amused to see him acting so solicitous.
“Thank you. Goddess, I’ve got a crick in my neck!” Ororo was surprised when Logan linked his arm through hers and escorted her out of the garage. “Don’t trouble yourself, you’ve done enough.”
“I wanna make sure ya get settled.” His tone was gruff and brooked no argument.
“My feet aren’t broken…” her voice trailed off. She noticed Peter and Kurt looking at her with concern, and she hated seeing them so worried. “I’m fine, really!”
“Forgive us, fraulein. Peter and I would have given anything within our power to keep you from being wounded like that.”
“You’re not responsible for my safety,” she reminded them.
“I would die before seeing you harmed, Ororo. You’re as precious to me as my sister.” Peter gathered the luggage, shaking off her hand when she reached for her own bag.
“Fair enough, little brother. I’ll be more careful next time.”
“Damn skippy. Soon as yer up to it, we’re headin’ into the Danger Room to sharpen those hand-to-hand skills. I also wanna show you a few things with those shuriken and the bo staff.”
“I’ll book the suite for tomorrow afternoon.”
“Uh-uh. I said ‘when yer up to it.’ That don’t mean first thing tomorrow.” He cocked his brow with menace, and Ororo met that look with a haughty smile. Logan grunted. Least she’s in a better mood, that’s a good sign.
“Try and stop me.”
“Don’t tempt me. Besides, darlin’, ya still gotta get past Moira. Even if I don’t lock ya in yer loft for some much needed R&R ““
“Locks won’t keep me inside, my friend!”
“Whaddever. If ya still don’t have a clean bill o’ health, Moira’ll kick yer butt and fill yer ears with promises of worse ta come if ya don’t take care of yourself.” Logan didn’t put it past her, God bless her.
“We’ll take a rain check, then.” Logan felt as well as heard the hint of laughter in her voice, warming him. “I look forward to cleaning the floor with you.”
“Not even on yer best day, darlin’,” he boasted, letting them in through the front door.
Ororo stopped by the kitchen to discard the remainder of her dinner, not really in the mood for the shriveled, cold fries and other half of her Filet-o-Fish sandwich. Logan smiled as he remembered her starting on her small caramel sundae first. She grinned back at him, confirming his suspicions. “Yukio reminded me that life’s short. Eat dessert first!”
“Figures.”
Peter carried her bags upstairs to her loft, leaving them outside the door. “Let me know if you need me to bring up anything else, Ororo.”
“You’ve done enough. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Guten nacht, Ororo.” Kurt pecked her on the cheek and scurried along the wall toward the main floor.
“Logan?” He was just about to head back downstairs and leave her to her privacy, like a good little trooper, but he was surprised yet again that night at how relieved he felt to hear her voice, and that odd little catch in it when she spoke to him. He turned to face her, frustrated to see her looking dead on her feet. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Everything. Most of all, for coming back. I know there wasn’t really anything keeping you here…”
“That ain’t true.” Logan stubbed out his cigar against his palm, and Ororo winced at the sizzle of the spark extinguishing itself against his flesh. “Don’t ever believe that. I ain’t gonna bang my head up against the same wall, waitin’ fer Mariko t’take me back and be my wife. There’s a few things she has to attend to, and I ain’t gonna get in her way or give her reason t’regret that she ever loved me in the first place. Think I’ve done enough of that already for this lifetime, darlin’, dontcha agree?” Without realizing it, Logan had followed Ororo into her loft, grunting at the now sparely furnished, almost severe space, curious about the lack of thriving plants that usually tickled his senses. He didn’t want to overstay his welcome with Ororo so tired, but something in her eyes stopped him from taking his leave. “Roro…even if M’iko an’ I had gotten married, don’t think…don’t think that woulda been the last ya would’ve seen of me.”
“You can’t really have a life in two different continents.”
“Sez who? I can visit every now an’ again. Don’t know what you goody-goodies would do without me to show ya how it’s s’posed t’be done. You and One-Eye would probably be tiptoeing around the enemy, knocking on every door, making sissy aerial attacks, and letting everyone get off with a warning.”
“Bright Lady, listen to you. Such an ego. You’ve proven once again that you’re a true Renaissance Man, my friend.” Ororo removed the scarf from her hair and kneaded her nape, closing her eyes at the stiffness there. A large, firm hand clapped itself gently around her shoulder, nudging her into a nearby chair.
“Siddown. Yer too tight. Take a load off.” Wearily she obeyed, watching him with eyes full of questions. Logan chucked his cigar stub into her wicker wastebasket, to Ororo’s relief; she was thankful that it wouldn’t take long to fan the scent out of her loft with a quick breeze now. Logan knelt in front of her and reached for her foot, setting it on his lap as he tugged off her first leather boot, then her thin cotton sock. She wiggled her toes reflexively; it felt wonderful to get out of the stiff footwear. Logan lightly stroked the ball of her foot with his thumb, then pressed both thumbs into her sole, kneading the knotted muscles and pressure points. Ororo groaned low in her throat. Encouraged by her response, Logan blew lightly between her toes.
“Goddess,” she sighed. “You have amazing hands, Logan.”
“They’re good for more than killin’.”
“I know that.”
“Just remindin’ ya.”
“Duly noted. Mmmmmmm.” He skillfully kneaded her heel and narrow ankle, and Ororo’s shoulders drooped with the relaxing, irresistible sensations. Logan looked up at the expression of rapture on her face and felt a tingling warmth in his gut. Beneath the fading bruises on her face, her features were exquisitely sculpted and achingly beautiful. His hands stilled as he felt his Stetson being lightly lifted from his tousled hair. Ororo’s touch was light and hesitant at first as she stroked his unruly black waves. “It’s funny. You don’t really get ‘hat hair.’ It just springs back to the same shape, every time.” She caressed his hair more confidently now, and her gaze held him immobile, almost breathless as he became lost in her blue eyes, glowing like liquid diamonds. Her touch was sensual and knowing, and Logan realized, instinctive. She just had a way with touch. Logan mentally shook himself and reached for her other boot, but his hand was shaking at the effect she was having on him.
Her clothes still held that scent of “airplane” in their folds, but it didn’t smother or overwhelm that sweet little fragrance that was naturally hers, sandalwood and tea roses. Logan rolled her other sock down over her slender foot, letting his fingers linger on her flesh. He didn’t restrain the sound of pleasure that rose up in his throat at her caress as she let her fingers trace the contour of his cheekbone, his temple. He rose to his feet.
“I’m gonna knead some of that knot outta yer neck, darlin’, then I’m outta yer way, I promise.”
“You’re not in my way.”
“Not fer long. I’ll leave ya in peace.” He circled her and leaned against the back of her chair, and Ororo felt his heat nearly envelop her, even though only his hands grasped her trapezius, massaging the corded muscles, taking special care not to chafe against the bandages that wrapped the wound beneath her collarbone. Her head lolled forward as she allowed herself to relax and lean into his touch, rotating her neck a bit from side to side.
“You’re spoiling me,” she warned.
“Ya ever think every now and again ya deserve some special treatment? Yer the boss o’ the team, but that don’t mean ya gotta shoulder everything, and handle every little problem that everyone drops on yer doorstep. Not every minute of the day. Everyone needs a little down time. Sometimes we all forget that. That includes me.” Ororo’s eyes snapped open as she leaned back into his ribs, looking up at him in surprise. “Ya ain’t gotta coddle me, ‘Ro. I appreciate that ya came ta look out fer me and make sure I wasn’t gonna kill myself on a bender, or take anyone else with me. Don’t worry about me. Let me worry about you.”
“I…Logan…”
“Hush up. No arguments. Just say ‘I promise I’ll quit arguin’ an’ just listen to ya fer a change, since yer one of my oldest friends and you’ll kick my butt if I don’t do as you say this time and quit takin’ foolish risks since I don’t have a healing factor like yers.’”
“That wasn’t really what I was going to say.” Her hands covered his, stroking his knuckles with a soothing rhythm. His flannel shirt felt smooth and soft against her scalp as she leaned into him, and his abdomen was firm and solid underneath. She felt his rumbling chuckle.
“What were ya gonna say, Sunshine?”
“It…wasn’t that important.” Warm, strong fingers feathered against her jaw, tilting it up. Logan’s chiseled face loomed over hers, his black eyes searching hers for permission.
“Good. ‘Cause yer lips are gonna be busy for a moment.” Strong arms crossed themselves over her slender ribcage, still careful not to jostle her wounds, and Logan’s mouth captured hers for a probing kiss full of heat and yearning. Ororo’s hand found Logan’s face, cupping it as she surrendered to his lips, tasting him, allowing his tongue entry. It stroked hers, exploring it and taming it to his pace and needs, and Ororo’s strangled moan enflamed him. This time her fingers raked themselves through his hair, clutching it tightly as she held him close.
This was just more of the strange, charmed connection that had risen up between them over the past three days, Ororo reasoned, thrilling to his touch. His embrace was strong and sure and made Ororo feel safe. The kiss slowed, finally, but never lost its intensity, and Logan drew back, nibbling her lips so he could study her face. There was no accusatory glance or look of rebuke, only affection and respect that was more than he deserved. He trailed his lips along her face, raining kisses along her satiny flesh. Ororo shivered against him as he nipped the crown of her cheekbone, then nuzzled the sweet spot behind her ear.
“This is when I should be telling you to stop,” she hissed, “but Goddess help me, I don’t want to.” He sobered slightly, then dragged the tip of his tongue along the sensitive areas of her scalp exposed by the flamboyant Mohawk haircut.
“And you taste way too damned good to make it any easier.” His lips finally stopped at her forehead, kissing it almost “ but not quite “ chastely. “Damn it, ‘Ro.” He released her, straightening up, and Ororo hated the rush of cool air that hit her unprotected back. “M’sorry.” He retrieved his hat from the floor. “Get some rest, kiddo.” The door to her loft clicked shut after him.
“Infuriating, blasted man,” she whispered to herself once his footfalls had crept far enough down the steps.
Now she’d never sleep.
The next morning, in the kitchen:
Logan glared casually at the coffee maker, as if intimidating it would make the final stream of liquid drip through the filter. The rich scent of Folger’s filled the spacious kitchen, which was bright with mid-morning sunshine. Logan felt no regret at all sleeping in so late, but when he crept upstairs to Ororo’s loft to see if she had set aside an appointment with Moira for an exam, his teeth grit together to find Ororo’s bed already made, and her scent cold. It trailed off to nothing by her balcony, telling Logan that she went flying.
He stomped his way downstairs, growling at Kurt when he asked him “What’s got you walking heavy and looking like you want to kick something?”
“Yeah, Wolvie, what’s up? How was your trip?” Kitty looked up from the grapefruit half that she was spooning the last bits of brown-sugar crusted pulp from and gave him a bright smile.
“Eh. It was a trip. Airplane food, a little tiff with the locals, and I had ta kick Viper’s ass.” Logan’s tone was matter-of-fact. “Storm helped. Ya might wanna check on her a little later, Half-Pint. She’s gonna be recuperatin’ for a while, so ya’d do good ta help her with her errands and stuff around the house.” Kurt nearly admonished Logan for his language in front of Kitty, until he remembered that he hadn’t said anything foreign to her tender ears, after all.
“Recuperating?” The sour look that had momentarily crossed Kitty’s face when Logan mentioned Ororo disappeared, replaced with concern and worry. Logan grunted, satisfied that his previous suspicions were confirmed: Kitty still loved Ororo very much, indeed, and wasn’t as willing to cast their friendship aside just because she went a little crazy with her look. “What happened?”
“Don’t get yer knickers in a twist. Storm an’ I got caught in an ambush, and there wasn’t enough room for her to get airborne. Still, she did the best she could, under the circumstances, and ya know Storm’s best isn’t shabby by any means. She got hit by a couple of shuriken, and I had ta get her to M’iko’s for some medical attention.”
“Ohmigod.” Kitty’s face drained itself of all color and her eyes glimmered for a moment until she composed herself. “Where is she now?”
“I got back from an early Danger Room workout this morning on my rings; I went out to collect the morning paper, and I saw Ororo launching herself off the balcony. She was flying low,” Kurt offered, as if that was supposed to make things less worrisome. Logan and Kitty’s stony expressions let him know that he hadn’t succeeded.
“I’m gonna go speak ta Moira in a minute.” Logan was already reaching for his Zippo with his free hand as he took his cup of coffee with him out onto the back patio. Better to get the good doctor and her acid tongue on his side while the opportunity presented itself.
Elsewhere:
Ororo slowly made her way into the alcove of the subway tunnels, trying to ignore the dizzy way the corridor seemed to narrow, tilt and sway. “Stop being so bloody childish, Wind-Rider; if you’re too afraid to visit their domain, how can you call yourself fit to lead?” Ororo hugged her long black leather trenchcoat around her narrow frame; the nylon lining felt cool against her bandaged wounds. After a relatively short time spent tossing and turning, Ororo slipped into a fitful sleep and awoke shortly after dawn, eyes and limbs still leaden. Her mind was too alert to loll about in the covers, so she got up, determined to attend to a few tasks that were long overdue.
First stop, the Morlock tunnels. The Alley seemed to mock her as her boots splashed in the muck once she crossed the threshold between where the subways became the sewers. Ororo’s ears picked up the sounds of vermin skittering into their hidey-holes and she thought longingly of the bath that she’d enjoyed earlier, making judicious use of a chamomile and lavender sachet and the steaming hot water. The fragrance lingering on her skin and in her hair was drowned out by the stench of the tunnels, and Ororo steeled herself against the urge to flee. As usual, it was too dark down here, the spaces too close. A claustrophobic’s nightmare, she mused, no doubt kept as unsavory as possible to discourage her from making her rounds. The closer she came to the apex of the Morlock’s dwellings, the more signs of life she encountered: discarded food containers, stray bits of lost laundry, the occasional child’s toy, and old newspapers, whether used for entertainment or insulation, Ororo couldn’t tell.
For the briefest moment, Ororo was taken back to Cairo and the crowded, bustling marketplace, so rife with the odors of refuse practically boiling in the midday heat. Sweating foreigners with bulging pockets, fruit overripening in the humid booths, and the stinking back alleys that the locals used as a makeshift toilet; all of it came back to her in an unwelcome rush amidst the tunnels. She mentally shook herself; Callisto thought she lived a “charmed life” on the surface tucked away in the mansion, but she knew nothing of Ororo the Thief, orphaned, abused, and nearly exploited before she thrust herself into the desert wilderness in search of her mother’s homeland.
Callisto didn’t know who she was dealing with.
Ororo drew closer to the central hub of the catacombs, noting the same chains hanging from the walls where Angel had been cruelly shackled as a spectacle to the onlooking crowd. She felt that same revulsion now that she had then, chafing at the thought of him being pinned to the dank walls, unable to spread his wings. Those who never flew, could never know…
Feet splashed in the rancid water, echoing off the tunnel walls. Ororo heard new whispers emanating from the various nooks and corners:
“The Bright One has returned!”
“Wind-Rider!”
“That uppity upworlder’s come back t’grace us with her presence!”
“Ooooh, pretty!”
“Think she’s brought us any candy?”
“Cal’s not gonna like this!”
“Bet she wouldn’t be so pretty if Masque got his hands on her…” Ororo’s eyes narrowed at the mention of the flesh-shaper, remembering the indignity of him “playing with her” when she was bound to the post. Her skin still crawled with the memory of his touch and guttural voice, mocking her.
“Hello there, dearie!” Ororo’s eyes darted to the opening of the tunnel, recognizing the gap-toothed harridan garbed in a filthy wool cap, baggy sweater, tattered scarf, and skirt that dragged through the grime of the catacombs as Plague. “S’been an age since we seen ya last!” She cackled with ill humor.
“I’ve come with supplies.”
“Hope ya brought enough fer everybody, dearie,” she hissed, “when ya come down here, actin’ all hoity-toity like ya own the whole bleedin’ place…”
“I earned the right to enter this place by combat,” Ororo reminded her softly, regarding her coolly. Plague looked like she swallowed a frog and dug her fists into her hips with attitude to spare.
“Ohhh, look who’s full of piss and vinegar!”
“Care to challenge me again?” Ororo’s eyes flashed white. Thunder rumbled overhead, and the onlookers gathering within their midst felt an ominous chill. “The last time you infected me with your toxins, my aim was …sloppy.”
“Eh. Don’t trouble yersel’, Yer Highness. Wouldn’t wanna soil yer hands!” She walked away muttering to herself, “Come down here, all full of piss n’ vinegar, tellin’ us Morlocks what t’do…” Ororo almost laughed at the string of profanities escaping like ill-timed flatulence through the old crone’s lips. She leapt up onto the dais, struggling to appear nimble and not give away her weakness resulting from the past few days’ efforts. She unzipped the large duffle after lowering it from her shoulder, and began extracting blankets, saucepans, bottles of aspirin and other practical staples. A tiny red-haired girl with splotchy skin and odd-looking protrusions marring the piquant beauty of her face crept closer, pawing through the items with barely disguised delight.
“Yew vewy pwetty,” she pronounced.
“Thank you, child.” Ororo offered her a hesitant smile.
“Cal don’t wike yew.” She didn’t sound as though she regretted that fact.
“I know.” Ororo handed her a packet of cookies, and the child snatched it from her, scurrying off with the treat.
“Is this how ya plan on leadin’ us? By bringing us crumbs from yer fancy school’s table?” Ororo stood to her full height, dusting off the front of her jacket from kneeling on the dais, and turned to face the source of that hated voice. Callisto’s thick Brooklyn accent rang out strong and clear. She leaned against Ape for support, looking no less haggard than she had the last time Ororo came to make a status check on the denizens of the tunnels.
“We offered you the chance to stay with us above ground, to let us help you.”
“And we told ya ta shove it up yer prissy ass.”
“Then you’ll have to settle for crumbs.” Ororo’s voice was hard.
“Don’t think we’re just gonna settle fer long, bitch,” she hissed. “We Morlocks take from the same people on the surface that took from us. It’s a bloody shame if anyone gets in our way of getting what we need, or us takin’ what we want. We’re a big clan down here, Wind-Witch. Awful lot of us to keep track of.”
“I played by your rules once, Callisto.” THOOOOMMMMM…thunder rolled overhead again, this time also echoing within the tunnels. A sharp, cold breeze swept through the catacombs, making Callisto’s spiky black hair ruffle and whip against her forehead. “You owe it to me to play by mine, now.” Ororo stalked closer to Callisto, sizing her up. The woman was only an inch or two shorter than Ororo and possessed the rangy, lean build of someone who was accustomed to never eating her fill. Ororo’s eyes bore into Callisto’s remaining one, noting the drawn, puckered tissue of her scar. The clear blue eye gleamed with a keen intelligence and a great deal of bitterness. Callisto’s face was a melody of sharp angles. Her cheekbones were high but slightly sunken. Her nose was narrow but had the irregular profile of having been broken once, maybe even twice. Her lips were slightly full and wide, but had forgotten how to smile with anything other than contempt.
“You think just cuz yer pretty enough t’be accepted up there that yer good enough fer us, and that we hafta listen to ya, eh, princess? Ya don’t have scars like the rest of us; no one’s marked you with their hate!” Callisto tapped her black leather patch. “You don’t know a damned thing about suffering.” For a moment, Ororo almost pitied her.
“And you talk too much about things you can’t even fathom.” Ororo watched her coldly, almost enjoying the look of surprise that Callisto gave her rebuke.
“What’s been keeping you away so long? Are the worthless humans more important than bringing us a few tidbits?”
“I had to help an old friend in need.”
“A friend in need,” Callisto sneered. “Like there isn’t anyone in need down here! Look around ya!” She threw her arms wide in an encompassing gesture. “All hail the prissy Wind-Witch who stepped down from her throne long enough to bring us some crumbs! This is SSOOOOOO much better than just taking what we need from the surface!” A few of the other Morlocks tittered nervously until Ororo favored them with a hard look, forcing them to look up as she levitated on a self-generated breeze.
“I see plenty of need, Callisto, I’m not blind. But I see no one who would call themselves a friend. If you would have me help you, don’t make it so hard.” Ororo deftly untied the belt of her coat and pulled aside her leather vest “ formerly Callisto’s vest “ and peeled back the bandage, exposing the still-angry red wound. “I would die to protect those close to me,” she intoned, repeating the words she had spoken under Mariko’s roof, all the while feeling a strange sense of irony.
Ororo’s normally elegant, soft voice boomed with uncharacteristic menace. “Anyone who harms humans or other mutants dwelling above ground will answer to me!” She hovered higher, eyes flashing with currents of electricity and causing the air around her to crackle. “But if you need anything that it’s within my power to give, you know where to find me.”
She made her exit, choosing to float above the fetid water. Her collarbone was still stinging, and she wanted nothing more than to go home and wash.
On her way back through the outer subway tunnel, the faint spark of a match being lit caught her attention, preceding a deep, raspy voice. “Seems ta me like yer overdue for that trip t’see Moira, ‘Ro.”
“LOGAN!”
“Who was the battle-axe with the bad Joan Jett haircut an’ the eye patch?”
“Someone who isn’t very nice.”
“Yeah, I gathered that.”
“She used to lead the Morlocks. Her name is Callisto.”
“That frail ya had ta take down?” Logan took a generous puff of his cigar, and Ororo found that she almost welcomed it over the stench of the rest of the tunnel. “Why are ya down in this dump in yer condition?”
“It’s been too long since I brought them any necessities.”
“Ya shoulda had Petey or ‘Elf do it. Ya ain’t in any shape for it.”
“It’s not their responsibility. Or yours,” she reminded him simply.
“Eh. Didn’t have anything better t’do.” Logan inwardly catalogued what he had seen of the tunnels and of the woman who’s life Ororo had nearly taken to save Kitty and Warren. Callisto smelled like a predator, and had that gleam in her eye that a wolf has when it’s sizing up its next meal. Beneath the obvious tang of challenge that he smelled on her, Logan also found an underlying note of fear and respect. Nevertheless, he’d be watching her and her so-called Morlocks more closely if Ororo was gonna be making more frequent trips into the tunnels. “Roro?”
“Yes, Logan?”
“We’ve got a little tagalong,” he muttered, grasping her arm and turning to peer into the dark corner of the tunnel. Green eyes peered out from the shadows, and Ororo saw the familiar, white bones protruding from the forehead of the young girl who’d taken the sweets so eagerly a few minutes ago.
“Bright One?” Her voice was tremulous and unsure as she eyed Logan, reminding her of the Boogey Man that Analee’s kids had tried to scare her with stories of. His tufts of black hair stuck out like the shaggy whiskers of a wolf, but she felt less frightened when he smiled, in spite of the fanged canines his smile revealed.
“Take it easy, darlin’, I don’t bite.” Logan reached into the pocket of his denim jacket and pulled out a packet of Wrigley’s gum left over from their flight. He held it out to her, and she stumbled forward and snatched it up with a grin.
“What do we say when someone gives us something?”
“No one’s nevew given me anything be-foew,” she admitted.
“Then just tell him thank you, sweetie,” Ororo suggested. She decided the child would be given other opportunities to do so in the future, on future trips.
“Thank you, mistew.”
“What’s your name, child?”
“Sawa,” she mumbled around a mouthful of gum.
“Sara is a very pretty name. Sara, I’m wondering if you could help me with something.”
The child shrugged, content with her treat. “Like what?”
“Could you start checking this end of the tunnel every week? Bring Erg or Ape with you to bring back the things that I will drop off for your family.” Ororo’s eyes were warm, and Logan felt a tug in his gut for what he knew Ororo was trying to do. He noticed the catch in her voice when she said “your family.” They were the only family the poor little punkin’ had, he realized. “I will try to come the same day, around the same time that I did today, all right?”
“Kay,” she mumbled again, then flounced off. Ororo sighed.
“I hate this,” she admitted raggedly.
“I know, darlin’. C’mon, ya’ve gotta checkup with a very ticked off doctor ta keep.”
Shortly:
“Ye’ve gone completely daft, lass! Och, not a lick of common sense from anyone livin’ underneath this bleedin’ roof! First there’s Charles, tryin’ ta undo his good work with his recovery by pushin’ himself too blasted hard, and then there's yuirself, Ororo, stompin’ around in those disgusting tunnels, exposing yuir wounds t’that nasty filth!” Moira grumbled as she rewrapped the wounds that she’d grudgingly assessed as “healing quite nicely, all things considered”. Ororo sighed as she allowed Moira to abuse her ears with more of her tirade, knowing that she meant well.
“Yuir worryin’ me, lassie. First this insane new haircut “ and whatever possessed ye? Yuir hair was glorious, child! “ and this new strange attitude of yours, ye always used tae be so careful! Yuir the one that I never had tae worry aboot, and now yuir even more reckless than this cocky dog here!” She stabbed a finger at Logan as he came around the hall with a beer, just as he popped the tab. “Honestly, Ororo!”
“I wasn’t trying to be reckless, per se,” Ororo hedged.
“Well, ye’ve succeeded in it,” Moira huffed. “And you, Mister Department H, Weapon X, My Poop Don’t Stink, why in the bluidy hell did ye let this lass run after ye t’Tokyo and get herself into this condition?”
“There wasn’t any stoppin’ her once her mind was made up t’follow me,” he retorted blandly. “You know that, good an’ well, Doc.”
“Harumph.” Moira practically throttled Ororo with the tongue depressor as she looked into her throat. Logan suppressed a grin as he took another sip of his brew.
“Told ya. Warned ya,” he chuckled, enjoying Ororo’s consternation as she suffered through the rest of the exam.
“So says the man with the healing factor who throws himself headlong into people’s fists and bullets, just because he can,” Ororo sang under her breath. Logan cocked his eyebrow.
“Well, you do,” she accused. He winked saucily at her. Moira let out a long-suffering sigh.
“Well, ye’ll live. And through no doin’ of yuir own. Light duty only, light workouts as long as ye don’t do anything t’reopen yuir wounds, lass, and fer cryin’ out loud, get some rest! And stay out of those bleedin’ filthy tunnels!” Moira finished scribbling on her clipboard and tucked her pen behind her ear. “Now I’m off t’go kick Charley’s bum; it’s time for his therapy session.”
“Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Logan drawled as Moira swished out of the exam suite.
“That was actually the easiest part of my day,” Ororo admitted. “I’m off to give Kitten a ride to her dance class.”
“Talk to her, ‘Roro. Don’t let her keep throwing up that wall.”
“It’s hard when it’s so high. Even though I can fly.”
A few minutes later, in the Bentley:
“Did you have to wear that?”
“What’s wrong with it? Lots of people wear black leather.”
“Lots of people aren’t you.” Kitty relied on an old standby lecture that was a favorite of her mother’s.
“I’m comfortable in it.” It fell on deaf ears. Much like it had when Kitty’s mother gave her that speech. So much for being reasonable…
“Maybe I’m not comfortable with you in it.” A heavy silence hung between them after this admission. Ororo cracked first.
“I’m sorry to hear that. I used to think that you liked me for other things than my personal appearance, Kitten.”
“Don’t call me that.” Her words stabbed like knives.
“All right. I won’t.” A half a beat later, “I’m sorry.” Even though she didn’t really know what she was apologizing for.
“You scared the crap out of me, you know.”
“Language, Kitty.” Ororo glanced at Kitty in the rearview mirror, noting that Kitty was doing her best to keep her brown eyes focused at the “interesting scenery” out of the passenger window.
“You just left us at the hospital in Tokyo, without leaving us any word of where you were. And then…then you took off after Logan without saying when you were going to be back! And you were hanging out with that weird little thief friend of his!”
“She’s not a weird little thief,” Ororo clarified. “She’s just a thief. She’s actually very, very nice.” Ororo turned her attention back to her driving as they neared the neighborhood of Stevie’s dance school. “And I guess I’m at a loss as to why I have to explain myself to you, Kitty. The last time I checked, I was the adult, not you.”
“It’d be nice if you’d act like it,” Kitty grated through her teeth, her expression sullen. Ororo bit back a sharp reply as they pulled into the parking space in front of the school. Kitty grabbed her duffle bag and shoved the door shut with a slam.
“I’m heading home with Doug; don’t worry about picking me up,” she threw over her shoulder.
“That’s fine,” she called back. Then she muttered to herself, “Just don’t ask me not to worry.”
Bruised by OriginalCeenote
If my hair wasn’t already white, it would turn gray right now…
It was Ororo’s favorite “worry” phrase that leapt onto her lips when things felt uncertain. “Uncertain” was the gentlest term she could use to describe the past few weeks since her return from Japan. Absently, she rubbed the faded scar beneath her collarbone as she leaned back from the open refrigerator, cup of yogurt in hand. So much to do. So many people to be accountable for…
“The hardest choice I used to have to make on any given day was how much rain to send over the crops to end the drought. I miss that,” she mused out loud. She nearly dropped the bowl that she fished out of the cabinet at the sound of a familiar rasp with a Canadian burr.
“Talkin’ ta yerself again, darlin’?” Logan peered over her shoulder at her breakfast of choice and gave a slight roll of his eyes.
“At least I’m my own captive audience.” Ororo stood by the coffee maker, watching the lazy stream of Folger’s steam the well-used carafe.
“Lay it on me; what’s on yer mind, darlin’?” Ororo spooned her yogurt into the bowl and sprinkled it with a generous amount of almond and granola cereal, shaking it from the tubular Tupperware container stored on the counter.
“Too much to even describe.” Ororo’s lips quirked up into an incredulous smile as she glanced at the box of Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries that he pulled from the pantry. “Breakfast of champions?”
“Works fer me.” Ororo reached for both of their favorite coffee mugs; hers with a scene of Renoir’s water lilies screened on the side, his showing Bullwinkle announcing, “Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit outta my hat!” She poured them each a cup of the potent brew, thoughtfully leaving his black. She emptied a packet of Sugar in the Raw into her cup and drizzled in some nonfat coffee creamer, enjoying the swirls of white that rose from the bottom of her cup.
It felt like the calm before the storm.
“Half-Pint still givin’ ya a hard time?” Logan seated himself on the barstool by the little butcher block table in the center of the kitchen, looking good enough to eat in snug Levi’s and a light gray and white plaid flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Ororo silently enjoyed the faint scent of pine and his woodsy aftershave, as well as the smell of Tide detergent that lingered in the folds of his clothes.
“Do cows moo?” Logan chuckled as he spooned up some cereal. “It’s just the little things. Whenever she and Illyana are chatting away, they suddenly clam up whenever I enter a room. And that’s provided that they even opt to stay in the room; more often than not, she just makes a speedy exit.” Ororo dawdled with her yogurt, tracking her spoon through the granola in figure-eights. “I caught them in my loft last week.”
“Them?”
“Kitten and Piotr.” Cold prickles washed over Logan’s scalp.
“I’ll kill him,” he growled.
“No need. Not yet.” Ororo sipped her coffee. “Doesn’t mean I wasn’t tempted myself…”
“Boy’s old enough ta know better,” Logan grunted.
“We all forget how young Kitten is sometimes, when she’s so precocious and mature for her age.”
“Maturity don’t mean a damn thing when ya don’t have age an’ experience ta back it up. Kid ain’t even old enough ta drive or vote yet.”
“I know.” Ororo took a bite of her breakfast, but it felt leaden on her tongue. “By the time I was Kitten’s age, I was living hand to mouth.” She stared into her coffee cup. “I found that men could sometimes be cruel about taking what they wanted. Piotr’s not like that…”
“But he’s still a man,” Logan finished. “With all of the normal needs ya expect from someone young and healthy.” Logan considered how he felt when he was “young and healthy,” once upon a time…
“We need to talk to them,” they pronounced in unison.
“I have a full docket today.”
“How full?”
“I’ve scheduled a Danger Room workout for all of us. Charles wants to monitor our progress and make ‘constructive’ suggestions.”
“Constructive, eh?”
“Mmmm.” Ororo went back to dawdling with her yogurt.
“That’s already dead, don’t kill it again,” Logan murmured. Ororo snorted into her coffee.
“He wants to see how we work as a team, and perhaps see how we could be stronger, function more as a unit.”
“We already do that.”
“Mmmm.”
“Did he explain why he’s so friggin’ concerned all o’ the sudden?”
“Not in so many words, no.” Logan almost laughed aloud as Ororo drew a frowning face in her yogurt.
“So, darlin’, why do YOU think he’s so interested in how we fight?”
“Because he hasn’t had much of an opportunity to see me as leader since Scott left for Anchorage.”
“Sez who?”
“It’s nothing that he’s actually said.” Ororo stared at his scowling brows. “No one thing, at any rate.” She downed her coffee. “I’m not Scott.”
“Thank God fer small favors. Ya ain’t gotta be Scott ta prove that ya’ve paid yer dues. Scott’s pretty dedicated to the team and the school, darlin’, but he’s only ever seen Charley’s vision of it. You, on the other hand, ya’ve always seen the bigger picture, not only about teaching kids how ta control their powers, but how ta live and function in the real world, among their peers. You think about other things outside this school’s walls. Nice thing ‘bout you, darlin’, is you’re willing to accept accountability, instead of just the typical ‘role of leadership.’ Whoop-de-doo.” Logan made quotation marks with his fingers around the word “leadership.” “More than anything else, darlin’, you lead by example.”
“Tell that to the Morlocks. They despise me.” Still, she felt a pleasant, warm and fuzzy glow creeping into her cheeks at his praise.
“Not much I can help ya with there. Ya put a damper on their unlimited license ta kidnap, steal from and hurt people on the surface. Can’t just expect ‘em ta come quietly.”
“I hate the look in their eyes when I try to show them the way.” Ororo dumped the rest of her breakfast into the bin and rinsed out the bowl and cup. “Logan?”
“Yeah?”
“I need to kick something.”
“Now that,” he drawled, “I can help ya with.” He slurped the pinkish milk from the remainder of his cereal before chucking it into the trash. “Lead on. Suit up.” Then he added, to her retreating back, “I’m starting ta like that black leather on ya, darlin’.”
A short while later:
CRACK!
Chrome and glass splinters flew as Logan’s claws connected with the spinning blades of his robotic attacker. His heightened reflexes sent his fists swinging at impossible speed, economizing his movements on the back swing to save time. His hackles went up as he heard another one sneaking up behind him. Logan ducked and skidded in a home-run slide, hugging the floor as he ducked out of the reach of the rear-attacking ‘bot, knocking yet another off-balance. He kicked the legs out from under it smoothly, hissing out a breath of triumph.
“Shit, yeah!” he crowed over the buzzing, crashing cacophony.
To his surprise, and delight, Ororo took a more aggressive approach. Ball lightning was deftly flung from her gloved fingertips, and the automatons emitted showers of yellow sparks as they each bit the dust beneath the impact. Then she showed him a few new tricks. Instead of taking immediately to the air, her favorite evasive maneuver, particularly when it came to leading projectiles away from occupied or weakened members of the team, Ororo stood her ground, and met one of the smaller flying ‘bots head-on. Her fist glowed with crackling energy, and she slammed it into the oncoming assailant “ KRAKA-THOOOOOMMM! Logan felt the floor beneath him shudder momentarily.
“Whoolfffh!” He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own two eyes: Ororo used her thunder the same way as her ball lightning, as a focused punch! She packed almost as much of a wallop as Rogue or Colossus!
The rest of her moves were familiar, and to Logan, comforting. She’d come a long way in her hand-to-hand combat skills, and she pushed them to the extreme, disarming and deactivating robots as quickly as new ones were released from the queue. They fought back to back, out of long habit watching each other’s weak side. Ororo buoyed airborne ‘bots up with her winds, knocking them off-course, allowing Logan to nab them with his claws. They narrowly avoided being sprayed by shrapnel; Logan almost laughed at the stinging tingle of his healing factor taking care of tiny scrapes along the part of his jaw still exposed by his cowl.
It felt good to be alive, spending quality time with a friend. A special friend that enjoyed kicking ass as much as he did. Even if she didn’t always admit it out loud…
“Goddess, I’m almost enjoying this,” he thought he heard her mutter under her breath, amidst the clamor. Well, there ya go, Patch, ya weren’t off-base in that assumption…attagirl.
“Let’s wrap it up!” CLANG! CRAAAASSSSHHH! ZZZZZZT! KRAK-OWWWWWWWW!
(*END PROGRAM*)
“Nice,” Logan chuckled, assessing the damage. The room began to right itself as small trap doors in the floor shifted the wreckage into disposal and recycling units and warm air vents evaporated Ororo’s hailstones wherever they appeared. He retracted his claws with a sharp SNAKT and lowered his cowl, running his fingers roughly through his thick, tousled hair. He stretched, letting his joints pop in satisfaction as he caught his breath. “How long til that workout session with the Prof, ‘Ro?”
“We have a spare hour,” she murmured, letting her eyes wander around the room for a moment. Her tone was thoughtful. “I really should head to the tunnels to drop off more supplies.”
“Not without me,” he growled, staring at the proud, straight line of her back, taking in her ramrod posture that didn’t falter even a little after the vigorous workout.
“It’s my responsibility. THEY are my responsibility.”
“Who’s gonna watch yer back, darlin’?”
“I can manage just fine,” she huffed, her breath coming in slightly quicker bursts. Logan caught the faint flare of her nostrils and that cute little squint of her eyes that she usually made before blistering his butt with a well-placed lecture. He loved that look. He loved that whiff of passion that accompanied it, making her heart race and strengthening that bottom note of arousal in her scent.
“Ya don’t have to constantly run off on yer own ta prove yerself, darlin’, that’s why we’re a team.”
“Funny, Logan, I’ve often been tempted to point out the same thing to you.” The corner of her mouth quirked up, just before her tone dropped, sounding almost silky. “Surely I’m keeping you from a vendetta right about now.” Logan bared his teeth.
“Cute. And no, ya ain’t keepin’ me from shit, Boss.” Ororo lifted her arms over her head and pulled against her bent elbow, taking the stress off her triceps. She rolled her neck to one side, a look of relief washing over her features.
“Language, Logan.”
“Pardon my fuckin’ French.” Ororo sighed, throwing up her hands in defeat.
“You’re maddening, you know that, don’t you?” Her hands returned to her hips, ready to wage verbal battle.
“Uh-uh. Show me.” Logan, on the other hand, decided to take a different tactic. His arm snaked out, brawny and quick, looping around her waist and yanking her firmly against him. Ororo’s eyes widened incredulously as she studied the odd look of determination, mixed with something else playing across his face. It was a very rugged face, she decided. “I ain’t got any missions or vendettas or any asses ta kick at the moment, ‘Roro. I just wanted ta take a moment ta talk more about this little ‘wild side’ ya’ve been showing us lately.” His broad hands skimmed her waist and moved back down, cupping the exquisite flare of her hips through her leather pants. The leather was becoming buttery soft from repeated wearings. Broken in. Inviting. Begging to be touched and enjoyed.
Logan wanted to wrap himself in Ororo’s softness. Touching her, enjoying that tiny sound she made in her throat, feeling her body invite him, all of those prospects were making it nearly impossible to muster speech.
“Go ahead,” Ororo whispered, feeling herself drawn closer by degrees, taking in his long, spiky lashes, the sexy way that his eyebrows arched into bushy peaks, and the sharp notch of his upper lip. She licked her lips, wondering if he tasted as good now as he had a few weeks ago in her loft. “Talk to me, Logan.” Her hands betrayed her, flexing and unflexing before they began to drift up of their own accord. They traced the bulging sinew of his upper arms, exploring the contours of his broad shoulders, testing how solid and hard they were. A voice of reason screamed in her head “What in the Goddess’ name are you doing, foolish woman!” She hushed it with an equally abrupt I’m occupied right now. Go away. Her eyes were locked on his gaze, nearly drowning in the shadowy depths, loving the mischievous twinkle that lived there. “Tell me how…wild I’ve become.” She trailed her fingertips along his neck, tickling his earlobe. “Tell me how I’m…not acting like myself.”
“Roro…” His hands tightened around her waist, exploring the slopes of her ribcage, scrabbling up her back with heat and urgency. Heat churned in his gut. The unstable molecules of his uniform hugged him like a glove and hid nothing, particularly the tell-tale bulge pulsing between his thighs. Through the fabric, he could still feel Ororo’s leather-encased flesh pressing against him, driving him more than a little mad.
“Tell me how bad I’ve been, wild man,” she murmured, her words steaming his lips as her palm cupped his cheek, fingers spreading to comb through his hair.
“Ro…shit. I’m through talkin’!” His hands were viselike as they gripped her arms and pulled her into his waiting kiss, ravaging and devouring her lips with alarming hunger. “Discussion’s over,” he mumbled between kisses, sucking her bottom lip between his teeth. Protests died premature deaths on her lips as she gave herself to the heat building between them, pent up these past few weeks. Reason be damned, she wanted him. Wanted his touch that was making her skin tingle and the air around her sizzle.
“Bright Lady, preserve me,” she whispered against the crown of his cheek. Her hands clutched his wonderfully thick hair and clawed at his back.
“Jesus,” he gasped into the pulse of her slender throat. His tongue found every sensitive place, followed by the rasp of his short stubble. It was like liquid velvet and sandpaper, enflaming her nerve endings.
“This…this is wrong,” she insisted, pulling back from him long enough to search his face for any signs of agreement. She found none. Her chest heaved with the effort that it took not to tear off his shirt.
“Doesn’t hafta be, babe.” He wrested her hand from his shoulder where she was attempting to hold him “ unsuccessfully “ at arm’s length. “Feels pretty right t’me.” He peeled off her thin leather glove and nuzzled her inner wrist with his lips, nipping her, waking up her skin with that ticklish, rasping stubble.
“I don’t think…” She couldn’t think. His eyes drifted shut as he tasted her.
“Don’t think,” he huffed, suckling her fingertip, drawing it into the heat of his mouth, and she was lost. Watching the working of his lips suckling and teasing her was too much, and her own lips missed the feel of them. She freed her captive finger and cupped the nape of his neck, covering his mouth with hers in a kiss that could only be called possessive. Possessive, and even undeniable.
“Mmmph…damn, woman, you taste good! Computer, security override protocol, engage all entrances. Shut down all programs,” he grated out, his voice almost muffled by Ororo yanking his shirt over his head. He returned the favor, jerking off her black vest, exposing the nicely healing scar on her collarbone. His lips traveled down her jaw, nipping her chin hard enough to make her moan and squirm against him. She showed him her throat and he laid claim to it, drinking her sweetness and sucking a bruise to the surface.
“Annggh!” Her gurgling cry mixed pleasure and pain before he lapped it with his tongue, soothing her ache. He explored the sensitive junction of her shoulder and neck before arriving at the scar. He feathered his fingertips over it, touching it almost reverently. She got that mark defending him. That fact wasn’t lost on him, nor was the importance of her sacrifice, her loyalty. He anointed the scar with his lips, and she held him close, letting her hands roam through the fine mat of hair, his taut and rippling abdomen hot beneath her touch. His muscles tightened reflexively at her caress.
“It’s…ugly,” she rasped.
“No it ain’t. There ain’t one damned thing ugly about ya, darlin’, so don’t talk like that. Thought we were done talkin’, anyhow.” His hands searched her ribcage, feeling her through the leather, skimming over the swell of her breast. To his delight, her nipple peaked and rose beneath his questing thumb. “Yer so beautiful ya make me ache,” he finished. “So hush up, now, and let me get back ta work.”
Work? Was that what this was, work? Did he still think he was taking care of her? Was he just passing the time? Worse, was this just an interlude before he went haring off to Tokyo or back up into the mountains? Her traitorous thoughts were swimming along in the tide of emotions he was making her feel; she caught a faint draft of air hitting her lower back and the hiss of her zipper being undone. Her own fingers fumbled blindly with his belt and ripped it free with impatience. She put all that out of her mind when his fingers found her, cupping her sex over the thin, slick black satin of her bikini briefs.
“Want all o’ you, baby,” he growled, his need stark in his eyes. “I want ya so damned much.” He kissed her again before she could form speech, and she still couldn’t decide whether to be grateful. She didn’t know what her foolish mind and restless lips would allow to escape. Her breasts tingled for more of his touch, her belly quivered, and there was slick, damp heat pooling where his fingers had touched. Ororo couldn’t recall how they ended up on the floor, somehow they just tumbled to the cool metallic surface and she found herself stifling a giggle as Logan peeled her boots off, chucking them ruthlessly over his shoulder before she was freed from her pants.
Damn, I envy those pants. Logan’s eyes swept over the endless, slender columns of her thighs and the perfect little triangle of her mound wrapped in those tiny panties. Logan bit the fingertip of his glove and pulled his hand free of it, then did the same with the other, never taking his eyes off the vision before him. “Just…look at you.” Ororo swallowed, overwhelmed by his hungry gaze and the absolutely wicked look in his eyes. Her nipples picked the moment to stiffen even further beneath her leather bustier. “All of you, ‘Ro.”
“Take it all. Every inch,” she beckoned, running her hand down her stomach, feathering a teasing finger over her mound.
Bright Lady, please; tell me this means something to him. That I mean something to him. He shucked his boots and overbriefs before he couldn’t stand it anymore, and he covered her body with his in a lunge that took her breath. Logan thoughtfully snagged her discarded pants and bunched them beneath her head, cradling it as he kissed her. He didn’t miss anything, from the tender sweetness of her eyelids shut in rapture to the crests and hollows of her ears. She felt so supple and pliant and right beneath him, every slope of her body fitting into every hollow of his, like puzzle pieces. He rolled onto his back, surprising her as she found her world tossed upside down, but it all made sense as his hands reached behind her for the thick metal snaps holding together her bodice. Honey hush…perfect. They were perfect. He lowered her bustier and gently laid it on the floor.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he swore. Even the second scar on her ribcage didn’t mar the perfection of her rounded, full breasts crowned with mocha brown nipples that were already slightly rosy from the abrasion of her leather bodice and the frequent skim of his fingers.
“Logan…are they all right?”
“Beautiful,” he nodded, cupping her cheek as he kissed her soundly. Then his hands grasped her buttocks, which thrilled him with their firmness and inviting curves, and he hauled her higher against his chest to better taste her treasures. His mouth moved with renewed heat and urgency and velvety wetness, circling the sweet mound, and he was aroused to the point of pain when he zeroed in on her nipple, groaning into it as he latched on and suckled her. Her hips bucked against him as she rode out the sensations. Her bare foot stroked his leg, still clad in his snug leggings, and she arched into it as he loved her with his mouth.
“We’re ‘bout t’make real good use of those sexy long legs of yours, darlin’,” he growled, breaking away and rearing back, rolling to a sitting position and helping her to her feet. He yanked her after him, stalking to the rear wall of the complex.
“LOGAN!” she yelped.
“Can’t help it, I want ya too damned much, and there ain’t time t’go upstairs.” He spun her around until she was backed flush against the wall, the cool chrome making her shiver. “I like these little panties!” His fingers skimmed over her heated flesh one more time before he looped them under the elastic and tugged, letting them drop silently to her feet. She hastily stepped out of them and watched him, searching his eyes and finding only a predator licking its chops. Ororo couldn’t tell how he managed to lift her up and wrap her legs around his waist and how he pinned her between him and the wall, seemingly one-handed as he wrestled his leggings down around his thighs, freeing his throbbing erection, but it wasn’t worth contemplating right now… The voluptuous, plump head of his manhood bobbed free, rubbing against her and with a careful jerk and a faint grunt of completion hissed through his teeth, he entered her. Ororo shuddered and clenched around him as he stretched her, almost making her ache.
“Logan…” It was done. There was no turning back. Logan nearly collapsed at the snug, hot sheath wrapped around him, squeezing him, and he never wanted it to end.
“’Roro!” Just when Ororo thought it couldn’t get any better, he began to move. His hips backed away and thrust forward, impaling her, filling her, and Ororo released a full-bodied moan into his ear. Her teeth grazed his lobe, which only fed his desperate need to possess her.
He wanted to be gentle with her, damn it. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to be this savage mating, this rough and abrupt claiming of their bodies slapping together, harsh sounds clawing their way out of her throat. Then again, he reasoned, she wasn’t supposed to be digging her fingernails into his back, biting her lip with her head flung back like a prom date in the back of daddy’s car. No, he argued. This was Ororo.
Yes, argued that part of him that didn’t give a damn about control. It’s ‘Ro, all right. And she tastes sooooo goooooood. Feels like silk. Kitten’s got claws…
Shut up. A little friggin’ respect…
We’re in yer head, Patch. It’s yer body pinnin’ her to the wall. Don’t blame me.
No. He could only blame himself. He knew it would pain him to disengage himself when he was getting so close, and when she felt so good, so tight, hugging him like she couldn’t let go…
“Easy, darlin’, this…this wasn’t the way I wanted to do this. Not how I wanted ta make it for ya.” He plunged inside her one more time, noting the desperate haze of longing and lust on her face, softening her features. Her lips were rosy and slightly swollen.
“I’m…I’m sorry, is it…me, or is it…?”
“It ain’t you. Believe me, it ain’t you.” Gently, painstakingly, he unwrapped her legs from his waist and let her feet drift to the floor, and with supreme effort, he released himself from her depths, hating the cool blast of air against his moist skin. He still smelled like her, damn it! He kissed her again, this time slowly, tenderly, and she rewarded him with a rumble of appreciation. “I kinda wanted this to be…not so…crazy. I wanted ya t’enjoy it. I should have taken my time with ya.”
“I wanted you just as much,” she reassured him. She stroked his cheek and feathered a kiss against his forehead. “I still do.”
“Then let me try ta set this right.” He backed away from her and peeled off his tights, leaving himself as naked as she. “Don’t want ya ta feel lonely in the altogether.”
“Very thoughtful of you,” she agreed. “And I like you like this, my friend.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with languor, rubbing against all of him, unfettered, with no more barriers. Her nipples brushed against the fine hair on his chest, and his hands were filled with her rounded buttocks again, which he cupped almost lovingly.
“Turn around, ‘Ro. And spread yer legs.” The sapphire blue of her eyes deepened as she studied him a moment, then nodded, sensing what he wanted. She leaned her palms against the wall that was still slightly warm from the contact of her back and placed her feet a ways apart, and she felt Logan close in on her, kneeling and steadying himself against the backs of her thighs as he nuzzled her, parting her folds and taking a deep taste. She gasped and writhed as he probed and caressed her, making her slippery, making her cry his name. “That wall couldn’t have been too comfy,” he muttered. Electricity shot through her belly, and he dawdled and took his sweet time, stroking her and moving her with his attentions. His penis still jutted between his legs, stiff and aching more than ever listening to her cries. She convulsed and fragmented, and he drank the flood of her nectar, feeling triumphant at the effect he’d had on her.
“LOGAN!” She bucked and shuddered against his mouth, spent. She collapsed against the wall, leaning up against her forearms as her knees buckled, until Logan stood and hoisted her hips against him.
“Just wanted t’take the edge off,” he whispered, kissing her nape as he leaned into her, and thrust home once more, this time leaving her room to move and his hands more space to roam. Ororo arched back against him, raising her ass up to meet him, and this time his rhythm was more steady, taking more care to ensure her pleasure. His hands were everywhere, groping her breasts to contain their jiggling, occasionally reaching down to pluck her sweet spot to enhance her experience and spur her on. He plunged into her again and again, and the pressure built within her, tightening her around him, pushing them both over the edge…
“RO!” She felt the tightening and stiffening of his flesh within her as he gave himself up to his climax, bringing her along for the ride. “Oh, God, eeeeEEEEAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!! AAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!” His hips bucked and pistoned with a few final spasms before he shuddered to a complete rest. Ororo did crumple against the wall this time, the metal cool against her feverish, sweat-slicked flesh. Logan’s member retracted itself from her sweet nest and he leaned his forehead against her shoulder.
“Damn,” he panted, heaving for breath.
“Uuuunnnngggh…Bright Lady!” she moaned. He tugged her away from the wall and held her flush against him, drinking in her scent. His arms were clamped around her waist as though he wasn’t going to relinquish her soon. Her fingertips stroked his forearms and the backs of his knuckles.
“So…we’ve got a workout session t’attend to, right?”
“And a trip to the Morlock tunnels. You were going to come with me.” He nodded, kissing her shoulder. The skin was still sensitive, and all of her nerve endings were still screaming for his touch, even though they should have been replete.
“Sure was. Still am.”
“Good.”
“Good.” Mutely Logan wondered, how the hell were they going to make it to the locker rooms for a shower and to change back into those tight uniforms with less than five minutes to spare?
About a half hour prior:
“Peter?” Kitty peered around the corner of the den, smiling slightly as she spied Peter lounging on the couch, watching a painting show on PBS. His brow was furrowed and he looked deep in thought. “Got a minute to talk?”
He released a heavy sigh from his barrel chest. “I suppose, Katya. What’s on your mind?” He patted the space next to him, and she gratefully curled up against his side. He winced slightly as she jarred his shoulder, which was still sore from a recovering injury.
“Sorry, big guy,” she murmured. “Forgot you were still…”
“What’s on your mind?” he interrupted, sounding almost terse. Kitty quirked her brow before relaxing back onto the couch, content to just lay her hand on his leg. She felt equally rebuffed as he gently removed it, turning his attention back to the screen.
What the heck?
“I…I just wanted to see what you were up to. We don’t…get a lot of free time together anymore. I wanted to know if you wanted to go with me to the art museum after practice.”
“I don’t think so, Katya.”
“Oh.” Kitty never expected a rejection. Peter loved the museum. If she had her own preference, she would have asked him to the library, but she wanted to entice him with something that he enjoyed.
Anything to avoid the creepy silences and the way he seemed to be avoiding her lately.
“Is there anything you want to talk about?” Her scalp felt tight. Belatedly she realized she made a rookie error of the worst kind. Guys never just wanted to talk.
“Not particularly. I was just enjoying my show.”
“I didn’t know you liked this show.”
“You never asked.”
“Er…sure. Right.” Kitty pulled a lock of her shining brown hair over her upper lip in contemplation. “Silly me.”
“He uses a nice method of making trees,” Peter explained blandly. “Happy little trees, he calls them.”
“Sounds exciting.” And all of a sudden, a session in the Danger Room sounded more appealing than she would have admitted an hour ago. Jumpy, restless energy filled her legs, and she vaulted off the couch, disregarding Peter’s sore shoulder in her haste.
“OOF!”
“Gotta go, Petey, see ya later, gotta bail! Byeeeee!” She skipped using the door and phased through the wall. The last Peter saw of her were her favorite purple socks and her waves of hair rippling out of sight.
“Boszhe moi,” Peter muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. It was hard. He knew he should be grateful, but it was so hard. If only she weren’t so…devoted to him. If only she weren’t so sweet.
…if only she weren’t so young.
Currently:
“I’d like all of you to hear me out as I go over some notable points of your performance. You’ve performed admirably, but there are a few things,” Xavier’s voice rang out as he tapped his monitor,” that I think you could all learn from.”
“Colossus, you have developed a habit of just…for lack of a better phrase, smashing your way through everything, without much thought to whether an attacker may be able to pierce your metallic form.”
“Hardly anything can,” he countered dryly, but he silently reverted to his human form and met the Professor’s gaze squarely. Defiance whitened the corners of his mouth, and Xavier sensed the tension in his emotions without probing them too deeply.
“Certain things have. It took several years off of my life when Deathbird nearly killed you last year, son.” Peter sighed, knowing he was right, and felt ashamed at his earlier indignance. Of course something could hurt him. He wasn’t invulnerable, despite what he liked to tell himself. “A carefully thrown javelin can do a lot of damage, it isn’t the same as having a building topple on top of you, or stopping a runaway tractor. Everything, and everyone has a point of vulnerability where they can be broken. Shattered. Remember that, son.”
“Geez…” Kitty muttered.
“Ariel,” Xavier shifted his chair in her direction, and she realized she should have just shut her mouth, and her thoughts. “You have gained many new combat skills over time, but I feel that you, too sometimes rely too much on your powers to protect you. At times, you may encounter mutants or weapons capable of disrupting or muting your phasing ability, and you may end up turning solid at an inopportune time, leaving you vulnerable to an attack. I would hate to call your mother with unfortunate news if anything ever happened to you, and I would never forgive myself.”
“I can take care of myself; I thought we agreed that,” she murmured. Her eyes shot daggers from behind her mask.
“Listen to the man, kid,” Logan growled. “No one’s sayin’ ya can’t pull yer own weight.”
“Well, I can! And I have!” She looked accusingly around the room at all of them. “I’ve hauled everyone’s fat out of the fire in this room at least once.” She stared at her boots. “Some of you, even twice.” Peter winced, remembering back to his painful return to his organic form, drenched in his own blood in the middle of the kitchen, and the guilty realization that she had been ready to give up her life at the school to help him.
I feel…very small, he realized.
“Katharine! Refrain from making such accusations if you wish to avoid demerits. No one is denying the value that you bring to this team, or even to this school. But like everyone else, if you wish to work with adults, you must act like one, and that means taking constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement. I would like to see you work more frequently with Logan on your hand-to-hand combat skills, and with Ororo on picking locks and escaping from different kinds of bonds.” Kitty sighed, shooting Ororo a resentful look that spoke volumes.
Great. More time with the escapee from the Mary Jane Girls. Ororo bristled slightly but held her chin high.
“Kurt, you need to make sure you are considering your location each time you teleport, and take care not to rematerialize in a ‘hot zone’ by not planning ahead. I went over some notes from Cyclops’ log, back when Jason Wyngarde infiltrated the mansion. He documented that he managed to take you out of commission by aiming his optic blast through you as you materialized. He’s not the only one who can manage this, if your combat habits were observed by someone savvy enough, Mr. Wagner.”
“I understand, Professor.”
“Just to clarify, however, Kurt, that you are very adept at hand-to-hand, you have excellent agility, and you use good teamwork, particularly with Logan and Kitty.” Kurt beamed.
“Howzabout me, Chuck?” Rogue drawled, lounging against the edge of the control panel.
“Still a work in progress, Rogue, but it’s very good progress. I could tell you the same thing that I told Peter: Don’t naturally assume you are invulnerable. Mr. Wagner spent some time nursing you back to health not long ago after your encounter with Viper in Japan. An overloaded blaster at its highest setting is nothing to sneeze at.”
“Gotcha,” she muttered, study a speck of dirt on her green gloves. Xavier smiled.
“Logan?”
“Yeah, bub?”
“More finesse. Less breaking things. Think before you just throw yourself in front of a hail of bullets, or goodness knows what else.” He nodded to Kitty. “You should set a good example for the up and coming generation when you can.”
“Eh.” Logan popped the tab on his beer. “Sure. Why not.” He winked at Kitty. She giggled.
“Storm?” Ororo steeled herself and folded her arms protectively against her chest. Logan’s eyes met hers from across the room. Easy, babe. He ain’t gonna rake ya over the coals. She allowed him to see the hint of a smile flitting across her lips. The Professor panned through a few screens on his monitor and reached Ororo’s profile, then hit ‘Enter.’
“You perform admirably both in combat and as field leader, Ororo. You seem to have the respect of your peers,” he nodded to those assembled,” and their strong regard. You have a good handle on evasive maneuvers and the more subtle, passive attacks, although…in recent weeks, I have seen a more aggressive use of your lightning. Mustn’t be careless about that, not everyone can withstand a full-voltage barrage of electricity running through their bodies.”
“I know the risks.”
“You know them; but I want you to remember them in the heat of battle. Don’t let your emotions get the best of you…”
“I know how my powers work, Charles.” His eyebrows shot up quizzically at her tone. “I still work hard at maintaining control of my emotions. But I refuse to be afraid of them. I refuse to bottle them up. And I won’t just sit in a corner waiting for Cyclops to lead the team the way you’ve grown to expect. There are different ways to lead the team. And mine is not necessarily the wrong way.”
Kurt coughed. Peter stared at his boots as though they were suddenly very interesting. Logan smiled over the rim of his beer can. Rogue looked at Ororo as if she had grown another head while Kitty simply glared.
“No. Don’t ever be afraid of them, Ororo. Just don’t let them blind you.”
After a few more short notes, the team was dismissed, and Charles was left to review his notes in relative silence, bathed in the faint glow and clicks of the console in the Danger Room suite.
Almost an hour later:
SNIKT!
“OOGA BOOGA BOOGA!” Shrill screams scattered and echoed throughout the cavernous tunnels and tiny feet splashed through the muck.
“Don’t let him get me, don’t let him get meeeeeeee!” Logan chuckled and retracted is claws, taking a casual puff of his cigar. Ororo sighed, letting her hand drift to her hip.
“You really shouldn’t encourage that,” she chastised.
“You kidding? Kids love ta be scared til they pee their pants. Besides, how many opportunities do ya think they get ta play tag?” Sure enough, Logan felt a tiny, familiar presence sneaking up behind him, and he let himself go completely still to allow the dainty fingers to poke him with some hesitation. A quick sniff told him it was Sara.
“YOU’RE IT!” she shrieked, then turned tail and ran as if her life depended on it. Her giggles were breathy and whimpered out through pants and gasps as she ran from the Bright One’s scary friend who looked so much like the Boogey Man, even in the light of day.
“Gonna getcha, Punkin’!” he bellowed.
“If we’d know ya were on yer way down, we woulda made tea,” Plague spat.
“So nice to see you again, too.” Ororo set down her duffle, then backed away from it to allow the old harridan to riffle through the items without making any false moves.
“Ya still don’t belong down here, dearie,” she reminded her, then made a sound of surprised delight as she retrieved a can of Gold Bond powder and a tube of Aspercreme. She mumbled her way back into the catacombs, leaving Ororo staring after her with a combination of amusement and frustration. Would they ever come around?
“Don’t get yerself into a lather, thinkin’ bout her, Roro,” Logan suggested. “Ya do what ya can.”
“It’s not enough,” she frowned. “It’s never enough.” Her smile returned as she noticed that Logan was carrying two of Analee’s kids over his shoulders like sacks of potatoes. They kicked and screeched their approval.
Later, back at the mansion, Ororo made her way back up to her loft. A nagging worry had dogged her footsteps the entire way back home. She made her excuses to Logan and left him staring after her as she left the kitchen.
Downstairs, Kitty loaded her suitcase into a cab and grinned at the cheerful face of Douglas Ramsey. He leaned over and opened her door. “Thought you’d never show, Pryde.”
“Wouldn’t miss it, Dougie. Someone’s gotta make sure you don’t make a fool of yourself at that prissy school!”
“Oho! Like you’re suddenly an expert on prissy schools, huh? And look who’s talking, with you being cooped up in this fancy castle! At least I get to spring you loose for a few days!”
Kitty sighed. Spring her loose, indeed. She just hoped it wasn’t going to be the other way around. It had taken some effort for Ororo to “spring her” from the Massachusetts Academy the last time she strode across its manicured grounds.
“Did you get to tell everyone goodbye?” Doug’s blue eyes were warm and waiting for her reply. She reached out and gripped his hand, smiling to hide any trace of her misgivings.
“:Anyone who mattered, Doug. Let’s go,” she urged the driver, and they wove their way out of the circular driveway and past the iron gates.
Peter watched the cab depart and let the edge of the curtain drop back into place with a heavy sigh. Katya…
Upstairs, Ororo felt Logan enter her loft before she heard the faint thud of his boots on the floorboards. “Don’t run off. We need ta talk.”
“I know,” she admitted, drinking him in. In the cozy glow of her floor lamp, Logan looked dangerous peering out from beneath his Stetson that he still hadn’t removed. Like a moth to a flame, she drew closer, reaching out to brush the soft flannel of his shirt. He caught her hand and held it against him firmly, stroking her fingers idly. She smelled the way he remembered, but with just a hint of that arousal that she’d worn like a heady perfume in the stark emptiness of the Danger Room. He raised her fingertips to his lips and nibbled them. Ororo sighed, her lids lowering in contentment.
“It ain’t often that we get any time alone to, well, y’know,” he swallowed. “Talk.”
“Among other things.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want you to think that what happened between us today was a mistake,” she rambled, letting the words out in a mad rush. Logan’s eyes widened.
“What…?”
His voice was cut off as they were both engulfed in a bright flash. The mansion fell silent.
Every room was suddenly, echoingly empty.
Damaged by OriginalCeenote
“Get out of my mind.”
“Honestly, Kitten, you’re starting to sound like a broken record. You’re a bright girl. You can come up with better than that.”
“Don’t call me that!”
“I’ll call you whatever I like. I can do that, you know.” A thin curl of smoke rose from Emma’s unfiltered cigarette as she pursed her lips around the enamel holder. Her arched brows rose up into question marks. “Watch those thoughts, young lady.”
“Get out of them, then and we’ll both be happy.”
“You could be happy. Just let go, Katherine. Accept your place in the academy. You belong here. You’ve belonged here from the start.” Kitty struggled uncomfortably in the cool titanium manacles and glared with as much fire and bile as she could muster. Her inhibitor collar sent out psionic disruptor signals to her nervous system, blocking her brain’s command over her ability to phase.
She was a sitting duck.
One moment she was on a posh private jet, chatting a mile a minute with Doug, and the next a faintly nasal British voice purred at her from behind the flight attendant’s curtain. All she could initially remember was Emma welcoming her to Boston and thanking her for accompanying Douglas on his flight. Kitty’s heart hammered with a rush of adrenaline. She tasted metal when Emma’s bodyguards appeared at Logan Airport with suspiciously bulging blazers. They were bundled into a sleek limousine with oddly little preamble. “That’s it, watch your heads, darlings, in you go.” Kitty felt an impending sense of doom as they drove through the elaborately scrolled wrought iron gates. Cherubim and birds in flight peeked out from the Gothic letter on the front sign. Window dressings, Kitty realized, to disguise the hall of horrors it was. Pay a thousand dollars a month for tuition to send your kid to hell…
Kitty continued to project her thoughts in hopes of the Professor pushing back, but it was useless. Doug was shuffled off to his guest suite; Kitty was “escorted” under heavy sedation to a chamber nearly identical to where Ororo had been held captive.
At least I have my own body, she sighed, such as it is. Ororo hadn’t been so lucky, after involuntarily letting the White Witch stuff hers into that ridiculous little costume that looked like something out of an S&M film and abuse her powers with flagrant abandon. The White Queen poking around in her thoughts was bad enough…she shuddered in her seat.
“Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it, Kitten,” Emma cooed with a smile that didn’t reach her icy blue eyes.
Elsewhere…
“Storm…’Roro! ‘RORO! Will ya get back here?”
“No.” Ororo’s black leather boots had seen better days; they were already beginning to show cracks from repeated immersion in the muck of the Morlock tunnels. Now they were taking a beating in the underbrush of the strange planet that was their makeshift home, for how long, nobody knew. “I don’t have to stay and listen to the Professor’s belief that I’m no longer fit to lead.” She yanked aside some vines that were dangling down to snag her narrow plume of hair, coifed in its showy Mohawk haircut. “Come with me if you want. But I have no intention of staying where I’m not appreciated.”
“Slow down, then, Legs, let a guy catch his friggin’ breath,” he huffed. Ororo was jerked back by the arm, clamped in Logan’s viselike grip. “What’d Charley say this time ta get ya so lathered up?”
“What didn’t he say?” she groused, blue eyes sparkling with irritation. “He made ‘helpful suggestions’ that his age and experience made him better suited to lead us into this battle that’s quickly turning into a war! And that if I didn’t agree with him, he’d be happy to make me see things his way?”
“Hold up,” Logan stopped her, releasing her arm to pause her tirade with a wave of his hand, “ta see things his way? What the flamin’ hell did he mean by that?”
“You of all people know very well what he meant.” His hackles rose up and he bristled noticeably as he mulled her words.
“Shit. That ain’t gonna wash. Charley really said that,” he mused. That definitely got his back up and made him want to break something. No one messed with his mind, or with the mind of his best friend, even if they were in a dither over where their “friendship” stood.
“Yes.” She smoothed her hands over her head as if to rinse the revelation out of her hair, cupping her nape helplessly. “No one plays with my mind,” she snarled. “No one. Only one other person has lived to tell the tale.”
“That’s only ‘cause I stopped ya, darlin’, and I don’t wanna see ya travelin’ down my road. Ya’ve had some close calls, ‘Roro, but ya ain’t a killer. Don’t let it stew. It’ll eat ya up.” Logan breathed in the fresh scent of loam and floral scents, still amazed that their captor had tailored their surroundings to all of their various needs.
If only the Beyonder wasn’t so damned cryptic…
“What do you suggest, Logan?” she tossed back, throwing her hands up in lathered gesture. “I said my piece. He didn’t listen. And here I am.”
“I’d want ya in my corner any day o’ the week, ‘Roro. Ya know that,” he reminded her softly. She gave him her Sunday-best glare and spun around, stalking off into the brush.
“Sure you do,” she muttered under her breath.
“I told ya ta quit runnin’ off, woman, so get back here already, damn it, I ain’t done!” He caught up to her and snaked out his beefy hand, wrapping it around her arm and jerking her back against his chest. She felt his hot, exasperated breath against her cheekbone as he rasped “Quit treatin’ me like I’m the enemy, or like I don’t understand. Ain’t I more deservin’ of a little credit, darlin’?” The set of her shoulders was still stiff and unbending, and he steadfastly ignored her attempts to jerk free.
“Keep delaying me, see if a stray bolt of lightning doesn’t find its way up your backside,” she hissed venomously.
“Eh. Sounds fun. Ya never know, I might just enjoy that,” he grunted without humor. “Yer welcome ta try. I might sizzle a little and walk funny fer a while, but I guarantee ya, darlin’, I’ll still get up from it and dance a little tango, and ya won’t feel much better for it.” Then he paused a moment. “Will ya?”
“Errrgh.”
“Tell me what ya really think,” he nudged, gentling his grip long enough to envelop her in a bear hug from behind.
“I think he’s wrong.”
“Kay.”
“I think the Professor is trying to relive his glory days.”
“Eh. Could be.” He wouldn’t dismiss it outright. Charley getting his legs back was nothing to sneeze at. He could grow his own legs back, hale and hearty, without giving it another thought, but the Professor didn’t have a healing factor. His new body was the work of Sikorsky, the tiny, mosquito-like Shi’ar medic on Lilandra’s Imperial Guard.
“I think Scott’s pandering to his whims.”
“Panderin’, eh? That’s new. Not wrong, mind ya, but I never heard ya own up ta that before. Must be my bad influence.”
“Perish the thought. I’m not stomping around, stabbing things, guzzling beer and cursing like a longshoreman.”
“Not yet. And not beer,” he reminded her, smiling into her warm skin as he nuzzled her shoulder. “Just gimme time. I’ll corrupt ya eventually.” That worked; she barked out a laugh that sounded downright inelegant. “That’s my girl.”
“Am I?” she ventured.
“Eh?”
“Your girl? Or am I still just your friend?”
Damn.
Logan released her only to spin her around to face him. He sighed, opening his mouth to explain himself, clasping her gloved hands in his and fingering the skipping pulse in her wrist. His mouth strove to shape words, but he eventually shrugged without ceremony.
“Dunno.”
“You don’t know for which one?” She really wanted the answer. More badly than she wanted to admit.
“I don’t know what ta call it anymore, darlin’,” he admitted guiltily. “What are ya s’posed ta call it when ya go at it like rabbits with someone who ya normally just argue with a lot?”
“Complicated,” she quipped. “Unexpected,” she added. The mischievous revelation played on the periphery of her thoughts: Rabbits?
“Fuckin’ nuts,” he completed. “Problem is, I must be goin’ a little crazy myself. What happened back at home, ‘Roro…it didn’t feel wrong.” His voice was contemplative, and she felt a tiny, wonderful shiver when his lips continued to caress her shoulder in minute nibbles. “Felt damned good.” So good it was frightening. He was too fresh off of being left at the altar. His first roll in the hay was supposed to happen with a nameless, faceless broad with a body ta kill for who he’d never call again once the hotel sheets went cold. It wasn’t supposed to happen with someone he sat across the breakfast table from every morning.
He was supposed to be looking at Mariko over the edge of his morning paper when he was eating his eggs. But his mind kept skipping back to that comfortable time in the kitchen with Ororo playing with her yogurt and granola. His visions of Mariko’s ivory skin and almond-shaped black eyes kept shifting to Ororo’s mocha skin and eyes like liquid blue topaz, and he nearly shook his head against it.
“You don’t know how you affect me,” she stammered. “I…wish you didn’t make me feel this way. Under the circumstances,” she qualified. “We live together. We work together, if what we do could be called work. We aren’t exactly Scott and Jean,” she blurted before biting her tongue.
Logan let go of her hands, letting his drop, and she wanted to soothe away the hard set of his jaw and neck.
“Sure we ain’t.” His eyes were hooded beneath his cowl. He ran his hand over his nape in defeat. “Those two were the only ones that could make it work, eh?”
“They made it look so easy.” Bang. Bang. Bang. She kept hammering those nails into his coffin. “It’s too soon. You love Mariko.” It wasn’t past tense. He didn’t argue. “I won’t be your consolation prize or a poor substitute.” The wind felt like it was being knocked out of him hearing Yukio’s words on her lips.
“Who said ya were poor?” he retorted, spreading his arms wide, palms up. “Ya got an A fer effort, Sunshine.” She stepped back as though he’d slapped her. The sky above them began to churn as clouds began to swirl and spread into each other in the strange, foreign atmosphere of the barely explored planet. Logan wasn’t in the mood for drama, but Ororo had brought it to the table and served him up a hearty heap of it, anyway.
“You don’t just cut deeply with your claws, my friend,” she murmured. A strong wind swept against him, nearly knocking him over despite the firm anchor that his metal-laced frame afforded him, and Ororo was lifted into the sky.
“C’mon, ‘Ro…”
“No!” she thundered back. “FUCK YOU, Logan!” she shrieked over the gale of wind that carried her back to the compound.
“Shit. That wasn’t very ladylike,” he griped. Fine. Fuck him, then. How much worse could it get?
“THERE HE IS!” The clank of metallic clamps tearing through the brush toward him interrupted his mental self-abuse, and Logan extended his claws out of long habit. He’d given them a workout and a half over the past forty-eight hours. Every thug and superpowered megalomaniac calling themselves the next ruler of the world had come banging on their door non-stop, and his botched up “talk” with Ororo had been the closest thing to peace that he’d had since they were zapped to this…whatever the fuck it was.
A planet, more or less, slapped together haphazardly with leftover remnants of other worlds. The Beyonder had set up the board, and he’d arranged the game pieces where he wanted them, much to the pawns’ collective outrage. Logan was minding his own business, still reeling from Ororo’s plea of reason up in her loft, then…poof. They were in their battle gear, lumped together with all of Manhattan’s so-called “heroes,” suddenly duking it out in a fight that someone else picked for ‘em.
Logan fumed the moment that disembodied, jaded voice announced that they were to fight for their lives and their right to go home. He was the Wolverine. No one told him what his rights were.
They were the guy’s fuckin’ toys? Last time he’d been anyone’s toy was during his time in the Weapon X program. He’d gotten mad. Folks got themselves killed. And it wasn’t pretty.
“It’s the Wolverine! Get ‘im!” Crusher Creel bellowed, swinging his wrecking ball around on its chain like a pair of bolas.
“Easier said than done, you imbecile,” Doctor Octopus warned him in thickly accented, haughty tones. “Do you know what he’d made of?”
“Shit. Just like any other man,” Titania scoffed. “I ain’t impressed.”
“Likewise, Petunia!” Logan shrugged, throwing himself gratefully into the fray.
“It’s TITANIA! Got it, shrimp?” Well, that just tore it.
Finally. Someone he could smack. Something he could break without guilt. Life was good.
In the middle of all the tangled tentacles, flying fists and booming thuds of multiple wrecking balls, Logan found a small measure of surcease, but the nagging thought remained in his head: Never shoulda treated ‘Ro like that. She didn’t deserve it.
Ororo felt tingles of unease creeping up her back as she flew away, still fuming and cursing to herself. Why did she keep running into this wall? It hurt enough the first few times that one figured she’d a) learn her lesson, and b) leave the Wolverine to his own devices and beleaguered, dysfunctional love life.
“An A for effort,” she chuffed. “Hmmph.” Was that how he really felt about it? That raw, primal sharing of heat and want? The way her whole body sang and squeezed itself around him, thirsting for him? Wanting to drain the well dry?
Well, fine then.
Ororo’s boots barely touched the ground as Scott approached her at a run, barreling out of the complex. “Storm, where the hell have you been?” Kurt followed shortly on his heels, looking curious when he noticed that she was alone.
“Out. Took a walk. What do you want, Cyclops?” He bristled at her terse look but didn’t back down.
“You don’t just run off. It’s not safe enough for any of us to just run off alone. Look what happened to Wasp,” he reminded her. “We were worried. The Professor was concerned.”
“I’ll just bet he was,” she said smoothly. “Can’t let the helpless sheep stray, can we, Cyclops?”
“You’re a leader, Storm. You can set a better example than that,” he accused.
“And my walking away right now won’t stop you from telling me how. Or the Professor. Might I remind you, Scott, that you don’t even belong here right now.”
“None of us belong here, Storm, last time I checked.” The slender strip of ruby quartz of Scott’s visor glinted more brightly, as though his power was charging it for a confrontation.
“The X-Men have a battle to win. Not a married man stolen away from his honeymoon. You gave this life up. I’m team leader now. So do me a favor and butt out.” She punctuated it with a jab of her finger into his chest, firm enough to make him stagger back. She stalked back into the compound.
“Kurt??”
“Ja, mein freund?”
“What the hell was that all about?” He turned to face Nightcrawler, not bothering to use his codename now that Storm had left. “What’s got her panties in a bunch?” Kurt coughed; he didn’t want to discuss the status of Ororo’s panties, in light of the looks Logan and Ororo had been exchanging since they returned from Japan. He still couldn’t fathom it as it was.
“Best not to ask, Cyclops. I wouldn’t know how to begin to tell you.” Kurt went back in the direction that he came, excusing himself with “I’m going to check up on Piotr.”
“Fine. Sounds good. I’ll just…stand watch. Or something,” he finished lamely. Someone had to. This never happened with his old team. He led, they followed, and everyone liked him. Jean. Bobby. Hank. Warren. He didn’t have to worry about playing King of the Hill, getting shoved off and landing on his keister. Especially not by Ororo, for cripes’ sake. What happened to “My native people worshipped me as a goddess, I swore never to take a life, I need to maintain the utmost control at all times to avoid total mayhem?” What happened to being his friend and showing him respect? Why the pissing contest?
Even worse, he shuddered, why did she seem so damned determined to piss bigger than him?
Scott made up his mind right then and there that they were going to win the Beyonder’s little game and go home. He would go back to Anchorage. He would greet his wife at the door and kiss her senseless. And they would make love with him on top. And that was that.
He didn’t even have time to imagine Maddie in his favorite yellow nightie.
“Cyclops! We have a situation. Gather Nightcrawler and Storm and head out into the jungle about thirty clicks north of here. Logan needs assistance.”
“Where the hell has be been, Professor?”
“There’s no time to ponder that, son. Just go out there and get him. The Wrecking Crew and several others from the enemy camp have ambushed him. I can barely get a lock on his thoughts, but I can sense his psionic energy signature. Go.”
“On my way, sir.”
He was on his way to the compact, battle-equipped aircraft adjoining the compound when a rushing sound startled him and stopped him in his tracks. Ororo and Kurt were barely on their way out of the hangar when a falling object grew larger as it made its descent toward the ground.
“Unglaublich!” Kurt exclaimed.
“Goddess!” Ororo gasped. “LOGAN!” His body hit the ground with a stomach-wrenching thud before Ororo could even summon a wind to slow or blunt his fall. Every last trace of irritation left from their tiff evaporated into thin air. She bolted over to him, closing the last few yards between them, smothering a cry of anguish when she saw the shape he was in. His entire uniform was shredded and torn, and ugly welts and gashes across his limbs, chest and face wept scarlet, nearly blinding him where the blood dripped into his eyes. Dark tufts of hair stuck out from the remains of his mask.
“Nnnnggh.”
“Logan? What happened to you? Who did this?” Ororo whipped off her vest and bunched it into a makeshift pillow, tucking it under his head to elevate it while she peeled away his mask to better assess his cuts.
“I’ll get Reed out here with one of those hover gurneys,” Kurt suggested, rushing off, but not before Ororo caught his pained look at his best friend’s suffering.
“Ya should see “KARRRGGHHKH! “ the other guy,” he gargled. His voice rattled with the strain and the effort not to choke on the blood pooling in his mouth.
“Not funny.” Ororo’s voice shook.
“S’okay. Only hurts when I laugh, darlin’.”
“I’ll make them pay.”
“The hell you will.” Before Scott and Kurt arrived with the gurney, Reed Richards in tow with his medical kit, Logan muttered “Ororo?”
“Yes?” Her hand crept into his as she smoothed back his hair tenderly and mopped blood away from his eye.
“Yer not a substitute. Yer one of a kind. Ya wouldn’t be replacin’ Mariko.” He winced before a fresh spate of coughing wracked his chest. “Yer irreplaceable, too, darlin’. Quit frettin’.” His eyes studied her face, drinking in her features, her skin, her hair. “I didn’t mean it. What I said before.”
“All right.” Her chin quivered before she forced a smile for his benefit.
“And no blubberin,’ either.”
“Perish the thought.” She squeezed his hand before raising it to her cheek. “Goddesses don’t blubber.” They went soaring through the clouds for a good long shower, complete with hiccupy sobs and self-recriminations aplenty, but he didn’t need to know that. A heartbeat later, “I’m sorry.” Reed surprised them all when he flattened his body to the thickness of a sheet of paper and slipped himself under Logan, gently lifting him and easing him onto the gurney.
“Ya don’t gotta make a fuss over me, bub, I’ll heal.”
“You’re less of a target inside. I’ll notify Bruce to reconfigure you a uniform to replace this one. It’s done for,” Reed tsked. Ororo spent the better part of the afternoon sharing the first watch with Kurt, replaying his words in her head. One of a kind.
Back in the tiny village, origin undefined:
“Even if I had my sketchbook and pencils, I couldn’t begin to do you justice. You’re exquisite, Zsaji, did you know that?” Peter leaned over the prone form of the woman stretched out on the cot, looking peaceful enough that she appeared to be merely sleeping instead of unconscious. Her breathing was stertorous and labored, and her eyelids were waxy and revealed the faint outline of bluish veins. He longed for her to open them and stare at him quizzically, the way she had when he’d first staggered into her hut, bleeding from a gaping wound in his side, ribs throbbing with every groan, telling him they’d been fractured.
He couldn’t get enough of looking at her, even like this. He smoothed back an errant lock of shimmering white hair from her face, not surprised by the silky feel of it. Everything about her was so soft and inviting. Her hands were delicate and smooth as satin when she laid them on his chest. Warmth radiated from them, buffering the pain as she knitted his shattered bones back together and closed the wound. Perhaps her healing gifts were not as advanced as Logan’s, but they were certainly impressive. She’d merely smiled when he spoke to her first in English, then in his native Russian tongue, wondering which she would respond to before that idiot, Johnny Storm, swooped down in a showy blaze of flames and spirited her away.
He’d spent the rest of his time inured in the tiny hut, recuperating while he beat himself up. He loved Kitty. He cared for her and would never betray her.
Except that Kitty left in a huff, with her young friend Doug. He failed to smother the embers of jealousy at the unassuming teen’s boyish good looks and enthusiasm for all of the interests he shared with Katya.
With a grunt of discomfort, Peter got up and retrieved the small hearth, setting it over the flames in the brazier. He emptied a packet of Zsaji’s herbs into the pot, stirring them into the mixture and letting the pinkish mist drift into the confined space. As he had done several times since entering her hut, Peter told her about his life before he met the Professor, feeling that she might identify with his simpler early life on the farm. Whatever was in Zsaji’s infusions and concoctions allowed them to communicate on some level, despite the language barrier. They exchanged thoughts and feelings more often than actual words, thanks to the mist. He breathed it in deeply, and picked up the first vestige of her emotions; faint, but still there. It comforted him.
“I once destroyed my father’s neighbor’s tractor by accident when my sister was sitting in its path, playing with her dollies. Would you like me to tell you about it?” He stroked her cheek and began his tale.
Somehow, at some time during the skirmishes of the past few days, Peter Rasputin had fallen in love with an alien healer whose name he could scarcely pronounce. And he didn’t have the slightest clue of what to do about it.
One month later:
Jiro held his hand over his eyes as he stared up at the sky, curious about the growing, falling forms in the sky. “What’s THAT?”
“Let’s look in our monster book!” Eiko suggested. She nudged Akira firmly enough that his reading glasses were jostled halfway off his face. “Hurry!”
“Stop it!” he hissed. “I’m getting it!” He squinted up into the sky, treating himself to a look as he reached into his backpack. “Bet we’ve seen that one before!”
“Bet we haven’t,” Jiro countered. “Doesn’t look like Mothra.”
“You’ve never seen Mothra!”
“Have too! Saw him with my brother that one night when we were camping out in the back yard!”
“Did not!”
You don’t know,” Akira scowled. He yelped “Hey!” as Eiko snatched the book from his hands and began flipping through it carelessly. “You’ll rip it, jerk!”
“Awww, are you gonna whine your way home to Mommy to tell on meeeeee?” Eiko stuck her tongue out petulantly as she went back to turning the pages with her stubby little fingers. “Mothra, Kong, Godzilla, Gamara…” she paused, then looked at the falling shadows again. “Looks like there is more than one.”
“One’s really…BIG.” Jiro’s eyes widened. “Guys?”
“Yeah?”
“LOOK OUT!!!!”
The children scattered as they realized that the creatures were hurtling to the ground, and that they were in their direct path. Only the largest beast remained aloft, and it seemed to chase after a tiny, flitting purple speck. The children hid behind a large tree, stifling gasps of shock behind their mittened hands. The monsters thudded to the ground, and Eiko heard a muffled groan of pain. Monsters didn’t groan, did they?
“Jiro, they’re wearing costumes!” Akira murmured.
“I know those costumes,” Jiro shot back. “Those are the X-Men!” Eiko’s fear turned to delight as she hopped up and down.
“They’re mutants,” Akira pointed out.
“They’re COOL!” Eiko corrected him. “C’mon, let’s go talk to them!” Before either boy could hold her back, or even run ahead of her and beat her to the punch, she darted over to the shortest of the group. “Eeww, this one smells like smoke!” She grimaced and held her nose before remembering her purpose. “What’s your name, Mister?”
“Nnnnnggh…gimme a sec, kid,” growled a voice that Eiko could have sworn belonged to the Boogey Man.
“Dang…Ah feel like Ah went twenty rounds as Sugah Ray Leonard’s punchin’ bag,” Rogue drawled in an effort to break the tension and to assure the children that they were okay. She knew their costumes were a mess, that some of them were bleeding, and they no doubt scared the bejeebers out of the poor little tykes. Then it occurred to her…
“Where the heck are we, y’all?”
“Up in the hills! You’re in TOKYO!” Eiko crowed, even though Rogue hadn’t addressed the children directly. She found herself staring at the children with more than a little consternation.
“Y’all are speakin’ Japanese,” Rogue pointed out.
“So’re you,” Logan informed her, in flawless dialect himself, rasped out in his customary growl.
“My doing,” the Professor explained. “When in Rome,” he shrugged.
“It that STORM?” Jiro whispered loudly to Akira, elbowing him. “Why is she dressed like that? Where’s her hair?”
“Dunno. She looks cool, though. She’s even hotter than Dazzler or Lila Cheney!” The two twelve-year-olds sniggered behind their hands until Logan quelled their chatter with a glare that made them practically pee their pants.
“So you guys aren’t monsters,” Eiko sighed. “Too bad.” Then it occurred to her. “What are you doing here?”
“We don’t know yet, child,” Ororo supplied.
“The Beyonder said he could send us home,” Peter reminded everyone.
“To him, that just meant Earth.” Rogue began to dust off her boots with the cuff of her cowl-necked sweater. “Knew the guy was a chump.”
“Where’s Cyke?” Logan wanted to know.
“Anchorage.”
“How can you be sure, Professor.”
“I can’t sense his thoughts anywhere on the continent. In his case, the Beyonder returned him to where he took him from in the first place.”
“Why couldn’t he do as much for us?” Peter rubbed a crick out of his neck, wishing that Zsaji could caress the aches away. He felt the twisting ache in his heart at her absence. Her beauty would haunt his dreams when he finally reached his own bed.
“Wolverine? Where did you get that monster up there?”
“Eh?” He was dying for a cigar, but he craned his neck up at the sky. He felt a powerful breeze kick up that Storm had nothing to do with, practically knocking him on his keister.
An enormous dragon was flapping its way across the sky. His vision picked out the tiny, purple gnat flitting several meters ahead of its muzzle. The beast was giving chase.
“Holy shit.”
“Lockheed,” Rogue breathed, clearly distressed.
“Professor?” Ororo asked, stifling the urge to call the team to action, out of courtesy, and because she was at a loss for words.
“Rogue, Storm, we’ll have to fly tandem to follow them. Rogue, you should be able to accommodate Wolverine and Colossus.” The Professor’s words were more confident than he felt. His mind ran through possible scenarios of how to handle the situation that faced them when they met the city. None of them were comforting, now that he was no longer safely ensconced behind the headmaster’s desk. He was a soldier. If Storm accepted him, he was a leader.
He’d never been more afraid in his life.
The sight that greeted them when they reached the busy metropolis was staggering. Several buildings had been reduced to piles of gutted, smoking girders. Civilians were screaming and scurrying out like ants from a flooded hill.
“It’s go time,” Logan murmured. “Take us down, ‘Ro.”
“Absolutely,” she agreed. Her face mirrored Rogue’s solemn expression as they made their descent. For the first time in longer than she could remember, the people were fleeing from something they found more terrifying than the band of garishly costumed mutants and were barely sparing them a glance.
Hours later:
Ororo’s lungs screamed, clogged with dust, smoke and wind. She’d been aloft for the past few hours, and Shiro was beginning to wear on her last nerve. Goddess, but he was full of himself.
“You never should have come back to my homeland. The X-Men have never brought anything but trouble into my life, or to my home.” Shiro Yashida still garbed himself in the red uniform displaying the rising sun of his nation’s flag. His dark eyes blazed out from beneath his mask as he studied Ororo a moment. There was no love lost between them, despite Ororo’s past overtures at friendship.
“We’re trying to save it. If you can’t be grateful, Sunfire, then get out of the way.”
“It is you who are in my way,” he argued.
“LOOK OUT!” Ororo sailed through the air, angling herself like a jet and directing gusts of wind to cushion and slow the descent of the falling girders as an entire floor was knocked from the skyscraper.
Storm and Sunfire managed to work in tandem, using no words as they alternately pulverized the wreckage with his heat beams and her lightning, or welded them to stabilize the weakened structure to keep it from crumbling any further. Colossus was on the ground, sheltering citizens with his armored form from tumbling debris. Everyone was struggling against the gusts of air sweeping against them from the wing beats of the enormous green dragon flying perilously close. She was simply too big. Her talons skimmed buildings at random. Neon signs vomited sparks as they were flung to the ground, splintering into shrapnel. Cars were hit by flying girders, crumpling like aluminum cans. Citizens fled into subway tunnels, once they realized that being above ground was the least feasible option. Logan and Kurt led the way, and Kurt continued to ‘port people from harm when they wouldn’t trust the blue demon as he advised them to follow him to safety.
All of the X-men felt strangely bereft of the Professor’s words in their thoughts.
Beneath the wreckage of the skyscraper, trapped beneath a large beam, Charles groaned and cursed himself, trying to ignore the images of different events of his life flashing through his mind on a mad reel. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to be here again. Years in the service, months in space, weeks of rehabilitation had brought him to this again. Helpless. Immobile. Alone in the dark.
Miles above him, he could feel Ororo’s thoughts. Shiro was rubbing her the wrong way. That was nothing new, he mused, wincing as some shrapnel dug into his back, making him chafe and bleed from fresh cuts every time the wreckage shifted. He felt her emotions: Controlled anger, mingled with unbridled worry that made her heart race. There was something else that puzzled him for a moment. If he had to describe it, it was a desperation that he could only remember feeling once in his own life, and he could taste her regret at things she’d left unsaid. Moira had resonated with feelings like that the day they’d said goodbye and broken their engagement.
Ororo was searching for Logan, and God help anyone foolish enough to get in her way. Charles smothered a chuckle. The poor child was in love with him. A recent encounter between the two of them dangled from the fringes of her thoughts, and Charles wisely blocked out the details, not wanting to intrude. He gently skimmed her thoughts again, cataloguing her feelings and wanting to strengthen her, somehow. The events of the past few weeks away from earth were still fresh and raw, along with feelings he never expected from her. Indignance? What left that there? Resentment? Anger? Distrust?
At him. Good Lord.
If I get out of here, we need to have a talk, he promised himself.
Nearby, a low moan underscored the wailing sobs of a child who sounded no older than five, perhaps six. Charles focused himself on those thoughts, letting them be his beacon. He was exhausted and broken, and couldn’t afford to let down his guard, or he’d risk being open to the thoughts of millions, in all of their crashing terror.
A young mother and her daughter. Charles wanted to weep. They’d be lucky if they survived the night, and once again, he winced at the memory of Ororo’s childhood, fragments of it that she’d treated him to since she’d come to his school. Small hands reaching for cold, lifeless ones amidst the rubble. This child deserved the same chance at life. He could feel her mother’s light fading fast. Charles ran through the possibilities of who could come to their rescue.
Ororo was up in the sky.
Kurt couldn’t teleport somewhere he had never seen.
Peter would unsettle the wreckage if he tried to lift it or clear it out of his way.
Rogue had flown back to Westchester.
That left Logan. His senses, his claws, his compact size and unbreakable bones…yes, it would have to be Logan. Charles’ psychic summons was projected more loudly than he intended.
“Holeeee! Damn it, Chuck, ya practically fried my brain ta mush!” Logan cursed, clutching at his skull. His expression sobered, and Peter eyed him curiously.
“Where’s the Professor?”
“Outta commission, but not outta the game. Chuck’s buried. He gave me a quick picture of where he’s been trapped.” Logan’s expression changed as he listened to the rest of the Professor’s instructions. “There’s a coupla civilians that’ll be casualties if I don’t dig ‘em out.”
“Let me ““
“Nope. Ya gotta stay out here an’ help Kurt an’ ‘Ro. Yer too big fer this job, Petey. I’ll back in two shakes,” Logan vowed. Peter didn’t doubt it for a second.
“Good luck, tovarisch.” Logan sprinted off, following the call of Charles’ thoughts. Slowly, painstakingly, began to ease himself through the wreckage of a toppled apartment building.
He hated this. So much rubble. So little air to breath. So much like so many places he’d had to fight his way out of, and now he was headed in. The smell of blood assailed his nose and nauseated him, but he pressed on. He didn’t know how much metal and plaster he’d cut through by the time he finally heard the faint cries of a woman trying to comfort her child. He moved some beams aside as gently as possible, and his heart wrenched at the sight of the broken, bleeding woman whose face lit up in relief as he drew close.
“I’m here, let me help you. My name is Logan,” he began, settling on a simple explanation. He sheathed his claws, not wanting to frighten her needlessly, but her lips twisted into a smile he didn’t expect.
“We’ve seen you…on the news.” She peered up at his hands, noting the torn gloves and gleaming housings over his knuckles. “You are the one they call Wolverine.”
“Yeah. Sure am, darlin’.” Her daughter lay beside her mother, her chubby fist twisting into a handful of her mother’s glossy black hair. She looked up with terrified black eyes at Logan before bursting into screaming howls. “S’okay, munchkin. I’m gonna get ya outta here.”
“Logan-sama…” Blood streamed out from the corner of her mouth. She coughed on it, and her eyes watered with the effort it took to speak. “I’m…I’m dying. I won’t make it out from here.”
“Don’t say that, darlin’. I’m gonna get ya outta here. You and yer baby girl. I ain’t leavin’ ya behind.” Logan reached out and began to lift away the debris that had trapped the woman, and paused when he noticed a wicked chunk of a broken beam that had pierced her side, impaling her. Blood flowed thickly from her vitals, soaking her brown dress and sweater.
“It’s too late,” she moaned. “There’s nothing…that can be done for me. My daughter has no father. Someone has to care for her,” she reasoned. Her eyes pleaded with him, and Logan understood, laying trembling fingers over her lips.
“She’ll live. I vow it on my life. She’ll never want for anything.” Logan reached for the struggling child, who’d suddenly stilled her sobs, listening with uncomprehending ears to their exchange.
“Her name’s Amiko,” her mother whispered.
“Beautiful name,” Logan grunted. “Amiko? C’mon, be a good girl. Kiss Momma goodnight,” Logan cajoled, hugging the stubborn child snugly. She was weakened but still struggling. “She’s tired, an’ she needs ta sleep.”
“Mommy go night-night?” she whispered, out of the long habit that Logan imagined was a nightly routine between mother and child. His heart was breaking at the need for the lie.
“Momma’s goin’ night-night. Give her a kiss.” He bent over her mother, bringing her daughter close enough to grasp her mother’s cheeks in her cool little palms, and she puckered up, kissing the corner of her mother’s mouth. The woman managed a weak smile full of love and anguish.
Logan heard her final heartbeats minutes later, dying behind him as he made his way from the wreckage. He steeled himself against the smell of death as he made his way back to Charley. Once he dug him loose, Charles thankfully laid a blanket of sleep over Amiko’s thoughts, making the task of bringing them all out of the wreckage less of a fight.
Charles could never read Logan’s thoughts, but his emotions were an open book in the wake of the rescue, and they were painful in their intensity. Peter collected Charles into his grip, hoisting him into his arms as he carried him to safety. Ororo and Shiro both landed gracefully, but looked the worse for wear. Ororo’s face was wreathed in relief as her eyes landed on Logan, until she saw the tiny, unconscious child held snugly in his arms.
“Logan?” she began tentatively.
“Can’t talk ‘bout it now. Soon,” he suggested. His eyes looked lost. She nodded in understanding as she stroked the child’s round cheek with her gloved hand. “Shiro?”
“What do you want from me, gaijin?”
“I need ya ta get into touch with Mariko.”
“You have no business with my cousin.”
“This ain’t about business, and it ain’t about what she and I had. This is about honor.”
“You know nothing of honor.”
“I made this baby girl’s mother a promise. I need M’iko’s help in keepin’ it.” Shiro’s eyes swept over the child, and he felt a tug of pity for her. “She ain’t got anybody. Kid’s a Japanese citizen. Ya know how much red tape we’d hafta cut through ta take her home with us once she gets outta the hospital. Ya’ve got an important family that can pull a fewstrings, eh?” They shared a measuring glance, and Shiro nodded quietly.
“I will call my cousin. In the meantime…maybe you should all stay with me. I will make the arrangements.”
“Don’t trouble yerself on my account, bub. Ya won’t hafta worry ‘bout me. I’ve got other accommodations.”
“Not with my cousin. My cousin’s house staff and bodyguards have already been advised not to let you within a mile of her.”
“Tough break,” Logan shrugged. He turned at the sound of an ambulance siren and allowed the paramedics to lift the little girl from his arms. “Her name’s Amiko. I’m her guardian,” Logan informed them in surprisingly crisp Japanese. He supplied them with a few other bits of information, informing them that she had no other kin to notify. Shiro chimed in that he would act as her advocate for her hospital stay. They nodded in easy agreement as they bundled her onto a gurney.
Ororo fought and failed not to eavesdrop. I’ve got other accommodations. He was going to stay at Mariko’s. Of course he’d planned to. What else did she expect?
The skies beckoned to her. Ororo checked on the Professor, Kurt and Peter and informed them curtly that she would catch up with them at the Yashida estate the following morning.
She needed Yukio.
Ororo launched herself into the clouds, surveying the smoking buildings with a pang. Damage caused in only minutes would take weeks to repair. The X-Men would be blamed. They had to go home and check on the children. It was too much, too soon. The wind whistled through her hair and caressed her skin like a lover.
Her boots barely made a sound as she landed on Yukio’s balcony. She calmly picked the locks on the sliding door and let herself in.
Yukio didn’t even express surprise as she strolled out from the shadows. “Ororo.” Her smile spread slowly across her lips. “You came back.”
“I couldn’t stay away, Wild One. If you don’t mind, I need a place to stay tonight.”
“Like I’d turn you away!” Yukio chuffed. She hurried forward and flung herself into Ororo’s limp, waiting arms. Relief was eclipsed by alarm when she felt Ororo begin to tremble. Ororo’s fingers clawed at her back through her thin silk pajamas. “Ororo-chan…what’s wrong?”
“Everything,” she whispered. Yukio pulled back and gasped at the sight she made. Ororo’s white hair was dusty and covered with soot. There were tears in her leather pants, and a mean scarlet gash marred her cheek. Various cuts speckled her flesh wherever it was exposed, and her normally soft blue eyes were hard and bleak, not to mention bloodshot.
“You look like hell.”
“I feel like it,” she agreed.
“Come with me.” Yukio tugged her along, and Ororo followed her like a sleepy child. They made their way into the bathroom, where Yukio began to undress Ororo and ran the shower. She shucked her boots and tossed them into the corner. She drew off Ororo’s vest, and she stood before her shamelessly as Yukio whistled at the cuts and gashes marring her shoulders. Her skin was covered in a layer of grime and dust.
“And you tell me I live too dangerously,” she clucked.
“You always choose it. Danger always chooses me.” She met Yukio’s eyes in the mirror. “And Logan,” she added.
“Is the runt still being hardheaded?”
“Absolutely.”
“You love him, don’t you?” Ororo had just dropped her leather belts on the floor with a thump, and her hands shook over the zipper of her jeans.
“I..I don’t want to.” Her face crumpled. The shower hissed and steamed the tiny room, and Yukio folded Ororo into a fierce hug from behind.
“Welcome to my world, Wind-Rider.” Ororo wept. The skies outside wept with her, and the buildings that still smoldered with dying flames were finally extinguished as the rescue crews flooded into the heart of the city.
Yukio adjourned into the shower with Ororo, heedless of the familiarity when Ororo didn’t object. Yukio cleansed her skin with a small blue bath puff, picking fragments of debris from her cuts. She lavished a creamy handful of shampoo on Ororo’s hair, working it through the plume and massaging her scalp as she balanced on the edge of the tub. Ororo leaned back against Yukio’s knees as she rubbed her troubles away.
“Why do you bother to stay with them? Does fighting the good fight make you happy, ‘Ro-chan, or do you just do it because it’s the right thing to do?”
“I don’t know anymore. I just know that whenever I try to leave, it pulls me back. Your home always does,” she admitted. “The school is my home.”
“So it’s not just Logan keeping you there? ‘Cause I gotta tell you, Ororo, he never sticks around. Once you fall for him, and once he knows it, he’ll just walk out.”
“I’m strong, if nothing else, ‘Kio. Feeling this way about him won’t destroy me.” Her voice sounded unconvinced. Yukio didn’t buy it, either.
“Again, I’ve already played that game. Strong enough to love the Wolverine…shit, aren’t we a sorry pair!”
They rose from the shower and turned off the spray. Yukio fetched fresh towels and a pair of boy-cut silk shorts and a cotton camisole for Ororo. Yukio rejected Ororo’s suggestion of tea in favor of wine, and they stayed up and talked into the night
Logan spent a sleepless night, tossing and turning in one of Shiro’s several guest rooms in his house. He resigned himself to the fact that she really wasn’t coming home tonight, to him. He craved her scent of sandalwood and tea roses and the faint rumble of her deep, rich voice in his ear.
Mariko promised that she would apply for guardianship of Amiko, and she listed Logan as the child’s next of kin. Their conversation started off terse, but ended up with the whispered assurance from Mariko that she missed him. She asked him how Ororo was doing, and he grunted a noncommittal reply.
He knew things wouldn’t look any better in the morning.
Tuck Tail and Run by OriginalCeenote
One week later, back in Westchester:
“It’s over, Katya.”
Kitty felt the cool dampness seeping into her bones from the fresh grass beneath her as she sat beside Peter on the hilltop overlooking the mansion grounds. She seemed to hear the sounds of the outdoors and wildlife through a tunnel, coming to her at half their usual speed.
It’s…o…ver…Kat…ya.
Her cheeks felt cool and clammy as her palms, which she hastily wiped against her jeans as this new, horrible revelation sank in. “Over, Piotr?”
“Da. I care about you,” he clarified, “very, very much.”
“You…care about me?”
“Da. I will always be your friend, whenever you need one. But I cannot be your boyfriend.”
She attempted to make her lips work, but they quivered anyway, and her voice was a shaky rasp. “W-why?” She could look at him anymore; his eyes were full of concern, but the glow of affection and humor that she craved and grew so accustomed to “ for her, because of her “ was glaringly absent. He was still breathtakingly, ruggedly handsome, but now, instead of the rush of pride that he was hers, she felt…oh, God! Her heart thudded in a slow, heavy tattoo.
“I met someone.”
“You MET someone?” Her head whipped back around to stare him square in the face this time. “You just get whisked off to who knows where, and you’re fighting for your life…and you MET someone? That just doesn’t happen in real life, Peter!” she barked harshly, a brittle smile creeping across her face, even though her eyes were brimming. She dashed away the beginnings of tears before they could fall, scrubbing her knuckles beneath her lashes, and Peter’s gut twisted, feeling as though he had just kicked a helpless puppy.
“Sometimes it can, Katya.” He stared off into the distance, watching the sun drift behind the clouds. “The first time we met, the circumstances weren’t entirely different, don’t you think?”
“Bullshit. It was totally different.”
“You rescued all of us from cages after we’d been kidnapped,” he reminded her.
Fuck. He was right. Time to take a different tack.
“I thought you were very cute,” he admitted, and she clung to the possibility of a hint of warmth in his tone when he said that.
I’m still cute, darn it!
“So…you have a new girlfriend. How nice for you.” She didn’t mean a word of it.
“Nyet. I lost her. She was killed. I couldn’t save her.”
“You lost her? She’s…dead? Then Peter, why…?”
“Because there are other reasons why you and I cannot be together, Katya.” He caught her hand lightly in his grip before she could move away. “We are not the same age.”
“Who cares?” She didn’t.
“Your parents, for one. I’ve given what we have had together ““
Have had? Her mind screamed.
“ “ some serious thought. We live in the same school, and you are very young. I have the same feelings for you that I would have for a woman my own age. I want to accept those feelings, Katya, I do. But I can’t. Passion like what I feel…I need to feel that way about an adult who can return those feelings. I don’t want to worry about those feelings being wrong. I don’t want to take advantage of your feelings for me.”
“I’m too young for you? What, am I just a baby to you?”
He steeled himself before letting the shoe drop. “Yes.” He still only held her hand, but he felt her entire body draw itself tight as a bowstring, thrumming with tension. “You are no older than my sister, Illyana. Do you have any idea what that is like for me, Katya? To see you with her, laughing and talking like her, liking the same things, and feeling how wrong the passion I have for you is, as much as it would if you were my little sister? Society would not approve of what we have now. It’s taken me some time to realize that, but I feel as if this is the only way I can make this right.”
“Sure. You’re probably right,” she conceded at last, even though she had a momentary flash of all the little personal effects and gifts that she had accumulated during their relationship, and her fingers itched to gather it all into a box and set it on fire in the bathtub. “Guess it was kinda silly. You, acting like you loved me. Right? Pfft,” she huffed.
“It wasn’t silly, Kat-“
“Yes it was. It was bloody ridiculous! You’re so right, Piotr. What would people think?” She wrenched her hand from his.
“Your friend Douglas might be a more appropriate choice for you. He seems very fond of you. You have a lot in common, Katya.” It pained him to say the words out loud. He wanted to take it all back, let her throw herself into his arms again and drink in her sweetness, but he knew he couldn’t.
“Why has everyone been throwing Dougie in my face these days?” At his puzzled look, she muttered “Never mind.”
“I don’t want you to walk away from this talk with hard feelings.”
“Then we shouldn’t have had this talk, genius!” she hissed. She stood, making her giant of an ex-boyfriend crane his neck up at her to stare into her blazing brown eyes, returning his gaze wetly and holding nothing back. “I’m gonna head inside, Pete. See ya around.” She stalked off at a moderate pace, ignoring his guilty goodbye. She waited until she was well out of sight before she broke into a dead run.
Kitty phased through every door and wall between the front door and her room upstairs, not even bothering with the stairs. She passed through the floor of the room she shared with Illyana, startling her from her copy of Tiger Beat magazine.
“Kitty? What’s up?” Then she caught the ruined expression on her face right before she collapsed face first onto her bed, flopping bonelessly onto it and laying there, motionless, a moment before her shoulders heaved silently. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything,” she whimpered into the pillow. “Leave me alone, ‘Yana.”
“No.” Kitty heard the crackle of the magazine pages as she threw the periodical aside, and she felt the bed sag and dip beneath her roommate’s weight as she sat beside her and stroked her hair, making soothing noises of pity in her throat. “You’re my best friend. I’m not gonna just bail, just ‘cause yer in a snit. What happened?”
“P-Peter d-dumped m-me, Illyana! We broke up! It’s over, over, OVER!” she sniffled, punctuating each word with a thump of her fist against the pillow. “H-he said I’m too YOUNG, can you believe that?”
Illyana was at a loss for words, but she nodded silently, hating that she couldn’t agree with Kitty when she needed it most. She knew her brother too well.
“He cares about you, Katya,” she murmured.
“Not the way I want him to.”
“Shoot. This sucks. C’mere, you,” Illyana coaxed, jerking Kitty’s shoulder to get her to roll over. “C’mon,” she repeated, feeling her own eyes fill slightly when she saw Kitty’s looking bloodshot and bleak. Her lips twisted before she let Illyana pull her upright and engulf her in a hug.
“I hate him.”
“No you don’t.” Illyana rocked her and rubbed her back in typical, sisterly fashion.
“No,” Kitty admitted after a few moments passed, “I don’t. Wish I did.” Then maybe it wouldn’t hurt.
Thinking of Peter coming to her rescue was one of the only things that kept her sane while she was at the academy.
{Flashback:}
“You came to my rescue on a BUS???”
“Hey, whaddya want? It’s not like we could just take the Blackbird for a spin,” Illyana hedged, studying Kitty’s manacles for any kind of release mechanism to spring her loose.
“So what’s up with the uniform? Are you one of the X-Babies now?” Kitty inquired, earning stony glares from Rahne, Sam and Amara.
“Nice way to treat the X-Babies coming to your rescue after you got your butt caught, meninha,” Roberto drawled, folding his arms over his chest. “Maybe you’ll have a little more respect if we leave you here to rot?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Illyana chimed in, shrugging.
“Illyana, where’s Peter? Where are the X-Men?”
“Honestly, Pryde? I don’t know. I really wish I did.”
{end}
It was such a relief to be back inside the mansion, even though Illyana had to teleport herself inside to let them in, since no one’s uniform had pockets to keep a housekey. She burned the ostentiously “fuschia” Hellions uniform and took a thorough shower, exfoliating every inch of her body with a loofah and apricot scrub to remove the stench of old money and evil clinging to her skin. The next week had been awkward. Doug had called from the school, wondering where she had disappeared to, and she felt an icy tingle of foreboding when he’d asked “So, when are we going on that date you promised me to see ‘Temple of Doom?’” She hated Emma Frost with a passion, but that animosity quadrupled when she remembered her boast, dripping with venom:
“He believes it is you he is holding, but he embraces nothing. It’s an illusion. You can see how much the boy cares for you, Katherine.”
She’d wanted to kill her, but she also wanted to kick herself for being so blind. She never had a clue how Douglas felt about her. All of the outings and time that they spent together took on new meaning, but left her filled with shame. Had he thought they were dating? And now that Peter wasn’t her boyfriend anymore, could she really just go ahead and lead him on?
She knew she couldn’t. And that just made her cry harder, burying her nose in Illyana’s sweater and wetting it with her tears.
Downstairs:
“Peter? Where’s Kitten?”
“Upstairs, I think.” He excused himself before Ororo could press for more details. She stared after him, wondering about his hasty departure but not wanting to pry. She opened the refrigerator and rummaged through the bottom shelf, looking for a stray apple. The pickings were abysmally slim. She settled on an orange that was slightly out of season and began working on its stubborn rind. She was just chucking hunks of peel into the garbage when she heard Danielle and Rahne making their way inside through the back door, cheeks pink from the cool breeze. Their chatter stopped when they caught sight of Ororo.
“Hullo, ladies,” she greeted cheerfully.
“Er, hi,” Dani attempted. Neither girl smiled.
“’Ello, Miss Munroe,” Rahne muttered. “Didn’t expect tae see ye t’day. Ye’ve made yuir self a mite scarce lately.” She drew her shoulders back stubbornly, and Ororo bristled at her tone.
“Excuse me?”
“We’ve had to take care of things around the school ourselves since you’ve all been gone. I thought the whole point of us coming here was to protect us and keep us safe, so that people who hated mutants, or who wanted to use us wouldn’t get a hold of us. Where the hell were you?” Ororo put down her fruit, losing her taste for it.
“Danielle, we were stolen away. It couldn’t be helped.”
“We’ve learned to manage pretty well without you since you’ve been gone,” she bragged, but Ororo read the uncertainty beneath her bravado. She stepped forward, hand on her hip as Rahne hung back, content to let her best friend vent for them both. “Everyone around here acts like we can’t do anything for ourselves. We got away from the White Queen. We saved Kitty from being brainwashed. We haven’t gotten so much as a ‘Yay, Team’ since you got back.”
“Your efforts were commendable, but you could have all been seriously hurt! You should have called someone ““
“The general consensus was that everyone was out,” Dani tossed back. “Any other bright suggestions?” She was just getting warmed up. “We waited around for you to save Shan. We lost Shan. Kitty’s made it pretty clear that she wants nothing to do with any of us, but we saved her, because it was the right thing to do, and we stick together. We’re just students,” Dani continued, “but we try harder than you so-called grownups do to work as a team and protect our own! C’mon, Rahney,” she nagged, “let’s get outta here and watch Magnum.”
“Aye, let’s!” She followed closely on her heels, and Ororo wondered why she felt like she’d just been smacked upside the head. What had just happened here?
“What the hell was that all about, ‘Roro?” Logan grunted, scratching his head and looking as bewildered as she felt.
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out myself,” she murmured. “I think we’ve just been accused of neglecting the children.”
“That wouldn’t be totally off-base, I guess,” he considered, reaching into the refrigerator for the last beer. “Feelin’ guilty?”
“Goddess, yes!”
“Least I’m not the only one, darlin’,” he said, popping open his beer can and slurping up the foam. “Hated leavin’ the kids behind like that. That ate at me the whole time we were gone.”
“They don’t like us much right now.”
“Nope. They’ll come around, though. We just need ta win their faith and trust back. That takes a little time and a helluva lot of work.” He nodded to her orange. “Eat. Ya’ve got a workout in a half hour.” Then his eyes brightened as though a light came on. “And ya might wanna head upstairs, Ororo.”
“Why?”
“Kitty could use an ear ta bend. Heard her go up a little while ago. Kid was bawlin’ something fierce.”
“What? What happened?” Her heart twisted at the thought of anything happening to her, even though they hadn’t spoken much for a while.
“Only way ta find that out is ta go up and ask,” he suggested, glad to have planted the chance for a heart-to-heart chat between the two women that he cared about more than he wanted to admit. “I’m headed out,” he announced, chucking his empty can into the garbage bin before grabbing his Stetson and jacket from the hook. “See ya, darlin’.”
“Goodbye,” she returned limply, waving even though his back was already turned. The short slam of the door followed her down the hall as she made her way upstairs. She argued with herself with each step, weighing the consequences of confronting Kitty with her concerns about what happened between them.
She could turn her away.
She could tell her to mind her own business.
She could tell her she was no longer a child.
She could yell at her to get out.
She threw out all of those arguments as her last few steps quickened, bringing her to Kitty’s door. Before she could even knock, Illyana pulled it open and was surprised at first to see her, fist hanging in mid-air. Then her face softened as she said “C’mon in, Ororo.” She let herself out.
The scene that greeted her was pitiful. Half of Kitty’s box of Kleenex was empty, with crumpled tissues scattered across the rumpled bedspread. Stuffed animals and pillows littered the floor, and a photograph of Kitty and Peter together lay on the floor, torn in two. Kitty hugged the only remaining unthrown pillow against her chest and curled her body around it, seated on her bed and wedged into the corner, trying to make herself as small as possible. She looked up at the soft call of her name from the doorframe.
“Kitten?”
“Ororo??? Oh, God!” She thought she had no more tears left. “I need you!”
The last wall came crumbling down, and she darted over to the bed, cradling Kitty against her chest and reassured her that she was there for her, in any way that she could give.
“I love you, Kitten.”
“Love you, too. Sorry I’ve been such a pain in the butt.”
“Me too. Sorry I embarrassed you.”
“You didn’t. I was just worried, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry I worried you, then.”
“S’okay.”
“I’m here for you.” Ororo felt it more keenly after Dani’s eruption in the kitchen. Her presence in the students’ lives was even more important now than she believed it to be when she was in Tokyo, escaping it all with Yukio. She wouldn’t forget that again.
Silently Ororo brushed aside the memories that tickled her of Yukio’s laugh, and the warm tingles of how it felt to dance with her in abandon. She dimly remembered the flavor of lemon drop martinis and the scent of her perfume.
“I’m glad to hear that, Ororo.” Kitty missed the security blanket of Ororo’s once-flowing tresses, so she clung to her instead, plucking at the sleeve of her sweater. The women talked and embraced until Kitty’s tears dried up. Both of them felt a little raw, even as they exchanged watery smiles. Ororo left Kitty to her own devices, deciding she had done what needed to be done.
Kitty rummaged through her things, unburying her phone from a pile of leotards and tights. She picked up the receiver and sighed, her fingers shaking as she dialed her father’s number in Chicago.
“Dad? Hi, it’s me, Kitty.” She felt a hollow pang at hearing his voice, and the joy he tried to hide across the wires. “Is it…I was just wondering, is it okay if I come home for Hanukkah?” She nudged aside his suggestion that maybe she’d like to visit her mother for the holiday, pleading that she was dying to come back for the best snow of the season and a trip to her favorite pizzeria. Her father promised to make the arrangements with the airlines, and they rang off with happy “ albeit cautious “ feelings of hope for a good visit.
Piotr didn’t love her. She’d head home to someone who did. No more lectures about how she wasn’t old enough to be taken seriously, by her boyfriend, or the Professor, or by Ororo, who at least meant well when she told her that the people she loved would inevitably leave her, and that this was a fact of life. Screw it. She needed some down time and the chance to be spoiled a little.
It felt ironic and familiar as she stood in front of her closet, the doors flung wide as she perused her wardrobe offerings for yet another plane trip. She murmured to Illyana that she was busy when Douglas called, wanting to know if she wanted to go with him to the arcade. Illyana shot her a look of confusion as she relayed the message and walked out.
Two days later, Kitty climbed into the back of yet another taxi, on her way to the airport. Peter peered out through the window of the foyer, watching her retreating back.
“You’re an idiot, you realize that, right?” Illyana carped from behind him.
“I know, snowflake. Leave me alone,” he muttered. She felt him retreat from her and contemplated ‘porting him back to Limbo to let S’ym smack some sense into him…no. The best way to let him suffer was letting him beat himself up. Piotr retreated back to his room in search of his sketch pad. The dwindling stem of vine charcoal trailed across the page, roughing in a smooth oval and swanlike neck. He made an eyeline next, deciding on the shape before he committed to the drawing.
Leonine, slitted pupils peered out from a youthfully feminine face. Then he realized the nose was wrong. The lips were full, certainly, but there was a decidedly stubborn tilt to her jaw. The face was framed in thick, dark curls. Peter peered down at the sketch and wondered where he went wrong.
The face that stared up at him was a melding of Zsaji and Kitty. He threw the sketch pad aside in disgust.
Caldecott County, Mississippi:
The weather was hot enough to peel the paint from a barn. Rogue didn’t care. She was buttoned up from head to toe, wearing a baseball jersey with long sleeves and her most comfortable pair of broken-in, faded jeans. Passerby glanced at the young woman as she made her way into the convenience store to pick up some Slim Jims and an issue of Cosmopolitan.
She just needed some time to think, and some space to do that thinking in. She’d ignored Charles’ telepathic summons to come to his study once he’d returned from Tokyo. No one had been able to coax her out of her room.
**
When Ororo finally grew tired of Rogue’s reticence, she knocked on the door, and was surprised not to find it locked. The curtains in her window swayed in the faint breeze. Rogue was gone. What few things she had were left behind. Ororo eyed her uniform, still pristine and neat on the hanger. Only a few of her clothes appeared to be missing.
“Foolish, impetuous child,” Ororo sighed. This made her decision to come back to Westchester seem even more dubious than before. She no sooner returned than Kitten deserted them, needing to escape back to her father’s. Logan wasn’t making himself scarce, but he wasn’t exactly talkative, either. He just glanced at her curiously when he thought she wasn’t looking before excusing himself from whatever room that found them together. And she always knew when he was looking at her. She could feel his eyes boring into her, and taste his hunger. She wanted to offer him a bite, but he was making it hard.
Ororo left Rogue’s room and checked her docket. She had a training class with Samuel to hone his flight and maneuverability. She supposed she could reschedule it for tomorrow.
**
The sun and light breeze felt heavenly on Rogue’s bare skin as she rested from her swim, saturated in the fresh air and clad in a black bikini that left her more nude than not.
The voices still wouldn’t be quiet. Carol’s was the loudest of them all.
“Shut up,” Rogue murmured.
Let me out.
“Ah can’t.”
Then you’re stuck with me. Live with it.
Several hours later:
Rogue awoke with a start from her nap as a sultry, deep voice with a thick African accent murmured “You should really move into the shade before you get sunburned, child.”
“Shit…ORORO! Ya ain’t s’pose ta be here!”
“I could say the same.” Ororo cocked her head in amusement, and the sunlight set her white hair on fire, almost blinding Rogue as she met her gaze. She rolled up into a sitting position on the beach blanket, ready to grouse. Ororo stood her ground, hands on her hips.
“Ah live here. This is mah home.”
“The Professor offered you a home with us. You left, without so much as a note.”
“Wouldn’t have thought that ya woulda cared, sugah,” Rogue reminded her. “Ya hate mah guts.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Coulda fooled me.”
“Rogue…all right. I know we didn’t start off on the best of terms.” Rogue snorted.
“Ya bawled me out as soon as Ah stepped in through the front door. Petey just about killed me, an’ then Carol came in and punched me in mah nose, sendin’ me into orbit. Ya threatened the Professor that ya’d quit before lettin’ me onto the team. Did Ah miss anything?”
“Hm.” Ororo took a different tack and sat beside Rogue on the beach blanket.
“Don’t get too close.”
“I won’t. I won’t come any closer than you let me, child.”
“Ah ain’t a kid.”
“Then stop acting like one. Only children run away.”
“This from the woman who ran off ta Tokyo and came back looking like a punk rocker, scaring the crap outta all of us in the process.”
“This isn’t about me. It’s about you.” The two women stared out at the placid river for a few more moments. “And I didn’t run off. I followed Logan. There’s a difference.”
“If ya say so, shoog.”
“We’re worried about you. We want to help you.”
“Ah stole Carol Danvers’ powers. Ah have her voice in mah head. Ah can’t get rid of it. Ah can’t drown her out. And it’s drivin’ me crazy. Ah met an old flame of hers, his name’s Michael Rossi. Ah sprung him from SHIELD’s helicarrier. Ah started talkin’ ta him in Carol’s voice. He accused me of killin’ her. And…he was right. In all the ways that count, Ah did kill her.”
“Carol’s alive, Rogue. She’s rebuilt her life. She’s even more than what she was before.”
“Sure, she’s got me ta thank for that!” Rogue plucked a weed and began tearing off the tassel from the green stem. “Tell me another one.”
“You can’t run away from your problems.”
“Sometimes a body can’t quit runnin’, Ororo. Ah’m messed up. Ah grew up trained in the biz. Mystique’s the closest thing Ah have to a momma, and she raised me ta be a thief. Even a cold-blooded killer. Ya don’t just decide ta be Miss Merry Sunshine overnight. Ah know why ya don’t want me on yer team.” She picked at her toenails. “Ah know Ah ain’t good enough. Ah ain’t a hero, Storm. Now, g’wan, git. Ah don’t wantcha here.”
“I wasn’t always a hero. I lived for myself. I did what I wanted, or what I had to do to get by. I wasn’t saving the world before the Professor found me.”
“So? Ya weren’t a killer.”
“Says who?” Rogue whipped around to face Ororo.
“No shit?”
“Don’t take my word for it, child. See for yourself.” With that, Ororo stripped off her glove and extended her hand to Rogue. It was steady. She wasn’t afraid. Rogue read trust in her blue eyes before she hesitantly reached out and clasped it.
Ororo’s eyes rolled shut as she tumbled back into the blanket. Rogue gave a startled cry as she was overwhelmed by the maelstrom of power, thoughts and emotions she’d absorbed from Ororo. A clawing, aching need and wave of loneliness was the last thing she expected to feel when she reached into Ororo’s consciousness. That, and a passion so undeniable that she was glad she was sitting down, or she would have been knocked on her butt.
“Logan?” Rogue murmured aloud. “Of all the men ya had ta fall for, ya fell for LOGAN?” Ororo’s face was serene in repose. “Ya poor thing. Lord help ya, girl, yer braver than Ah am.”
Licking Your Wounds by OriginalCeenote
Then:
The Aerie, industrial complex and penthouse, Dallas, Texas:
“Ororo?” The voice calling her name held a faintly Western inflection and held the quiet patience of someone who followed direction rather than giving it. Her limbs felt lax and heavy beneath the tangled bedclothes. The bedchamber was sparely furnished, bearing little decoration.
Footsteps light as a cat’s reached her ears, starved already for the sounds of human contact, though she’d die than admit it. She caught the shift in his weight, in his paces, only a hair uneven as he entered following his brief knock.
“Leave me.” It wasn’t a request. Her voice was hoarse and low, foreign to her own ears.
“Be a shame, wasting a day like this,” he countered, continuing his task as though she hadn’t spoken. He moved to the window and reached for the shade, its loose flap already allowing fingers of sunlight to pierce the darkness of the suite.
“LEAVE ME BE!” Her voice cracked, still a strained rasp from lack of use over the past several days.
“Fraid not, ma’am. You’re in a strange place “ not strange to me, mind you, since it’s mine. This is my home. You’ve been too quiet.” He set down the tray, and the teacup rattled slightly against its saucer. “Kinda like the air right before an earthquake. So still, you can’t even hear the wind blow. Everything still feels charged. Makes the hairs on your arm stand on end.” She’d hunched down further, burying her face miserably in the down pillow. “Or the calm before a storm.”
“Get. Out.”
“Not unless you come with me. I’m not letting you languish in this room one more second. Not like this.” He tugged on the shade to release it, allowing it to retract and snap back onto the roller. She gasped sharply, nearly blinded by the golden glow, washing over her. Her pupils had remained dilated like a cat’s nearly since her arrival to her Spartan surroundings. The Goddess who once craved light and fresh air now cleaved to the shadows.
He felt a pang wrack him as he stared into those eyes and witnessed the anguish in their depths.
“Don’t. Don’t look at me.” She closed her eyes against his gaze, hating the compassionate, pitying stance of his body as he stood tall, with an almost military bearing.
“I’m sorry if I’m taking any liberties, then.” His sigh was gusty. “You nearly died. I know who you are, Ororo. The same man that was trying to bring Rogue in on a federal charge for nearly destroying a SHIELD helicarrier meant to take you into custody. I brought you here, where it was safe. I didn’t want anything to happen to you.” His tone was straightforward, even earnest.
“The worst that can possible happen already has,” she informed him, narrowing red-rimmed eyes. “I’m lost. I. Have. Nothing.”
“You’re alive. You’re a healthy, normal, beautiful young woman with her entire life ahead of ““
“Burn in hell,” she grated out before burrowing beneath the covers, away from the offensive light and the concern in his eyes.
“Have a little conviction when you tell me that,” he retorted. “I’ve been told to go to hell by bigger, badder folks than you. Say it like you mean it.” He had the audacity to sit beside the bed on a black leather ottoman.
“Get out.”
“Make me.”
He never saw her fist coming.
Her shrieking cry of defiance and pent-up rage tore itself from her chest as her knuckles connected with his jaw. He was knocked off the ottoman and landed so hard his teeth rattled. He turned to face her from his vantage point on the floor, cradling the throbbing tissue in his gloved hand.
Humor sparked in his eyes. “Don’t ever let anyone after me tell you that you have no conviction. Or a vicious right.” Her chest heaved as she scrambled to sit up. She clutched the sheets against her chest, unaccustomed to the draft hitting her bare back.
She uttered no apology. He asked for none.
“If you truly believe you have nothing, Ororo, then stay up here in the dark. I can’t make you see the light.” He collected himself and strode out of the loft.
She rose from the bed, wrapping the sheet around her body and tucking the ends like a sari. She contemplated following that outspoken upstart down the stairs, her pride rearing its head.
The lure of the sun and the racing clouds was too great. She padded to the enormous window and stared down at the cars on the street, seeming to mill like ants through a tunnel from her vista of thirty stories up. Her fingertips stroked the cool glass, aching to touch the clouds.
She couldn’t feel them. She was empty.
~0~
Now
Tokyo, overlooking the cliffs:
“Don’t fight angry, Pryde. Fight smart,” Logan grunted, watching Kitty size him up warily as she resumed her stance with the bo staff. They circled each other lie a pair of rival tigers; Kitty’s fawn brown eyes narrowed tellingly as she crouched and swung deftly, nearly clipping Logan in the neck. His staff spun easily in his fluid grip, parrying it and ducking her next attempt. He whistled as the polished wood skimmed the tufts of his hair.
“Not bad,” he huffed. “Decent,” he assured her as their staffs met again and again, the sounds nearly rhythmic and a counterpoint to the waves crashing below.
She was nimble, but not nimble enough.
His sweep was clean and brutal, knocking her legs out from under her. “WHOOOOUULF!” She landed hard, the impact jarring her staff from her grasp, making it clatter uselessly to the ground.
She met the business end of Logan’s staff, whistling through the air to plant itself in the center of her sternum, a neat, non-lethal clip that would leave an annoyingly tender bruise. Her eyes traveled up the staff as she struggled to catch her breath, raking over his weather-beaten hands and broad, shirtless torso and staring into his familiar, gruff face. There were still faint shadows under his eyes.
The glaring scars over his chest served as a reminder of when she’d fought angry. His expression was solemn, as though he’d read her mind.
“Don’t keep beatin’ yerself up over it, Punkin’. I’ve survived worse.” He leaned down and extended his hand to help her up. He’d done it countless times over the past few days. She wanted to scrub her hands of the feel of her own sword, plunging into Logan’s body and cleaving through him like a ripe melon…never. Never again.
They adjourned to the veranda of the bungalow and seated themselves on the mats for their daily meditation. Kitty removed the thick white jacket of her gi and folded it, setting it aside to allow the coastal breeze to kiss her sweat-drenched flesh. Kitty’s face still held traces of the gauntness earned from days of grueling training and a strict regimen under Ogun’s tutelage.
Logan had nearly given up hope, until he realized that wasn’t an option. Come hell or high water, Pryde was coming home with him. Images of Ororo enduring heartbreak over such a loss were unthinkable and intolerable.
Logan and Kitty faced each other with eyes closed, bodies at rest and focused on their core. Kitty’s breaths were deep, puling slowly in through her diaphragm and flaring out through her nose.
She wasn’t fooling Logan.
“I can smell how uptight ya are,” he growled, eyes still closed. She continued to breathe, but tension still made her muscles twitch. Another minute drifted by as she struggled against the voices whispering in her head, pricking her with insidious needles.
She didn’t want to run anymore.
She’d opened a new pair of ice skates on the first day of Hannukah, savoring the last crumbs of a humbly prepared dinner at her father’s apartment. The lake was frozen solid, pristinely beautiful, almost a sacrilege to lash its smooth surface with spanking new serrated blades. The air bit her cheeks and stung her lungs slightly as she trekked through the snow. She was free. No worries.
No aliens. No classes. No ex-boyfriends to avoid. No one telling her she was just a kid. The world wasn’t coming to an end yet, and she didn’t have to help save it this time. Just this once, she was out for recess. And why not? Logan took a break whenever he pleased. Ororo took a break. Even the Professor took a break every now and again, and didn’t limit his vacations to staying in orbit. Ororo told her that everyone inevitably walked their path alone. The inevitable came along and smacked Kitty across the chops.
She wanted to surprise her father at work. She knew Chicago’s public transit like the back of her hand. His receptionist suggested she wait; he wa sin a meeting. He’d been impatient with her. He couldn’t be interrupted.
So she’d phased into the wall. Gotten close enough to eavesdrop a little, in the interest of seeing when he would be done. Her stomach growled at her, clamoring for a slice of homestyle extra cheese, extra pepperoni pizza.
Instead, she heard her father cry out. She shivered and strained her ears from her hidey hole. Carmen Pryde. Divorced father. Humble businessman. And now, embezzler.
She fled, tears frozen on her cheeks as she hurled herself out of the building and into the wind and pelting sleet. He was going to Tokyo. Without her, he was as good as dead.
She hadn’t bargained on the risks to her own life. She had no money. A nearby ATM provided an emergency measure that proved too tempting. She phased through the console and grabbed a handful of bills, and the alarms went off, pounding in her ears. Her own stunned face was captured in the security cameras. Once again, she ran…
A man in a red demon’s mask caught her unaware. She inhaled a cloud of noxious dust that went straight to her head, fogging her vision. She woke up in hell.
He called himself Ogun. She’d called him Master. Her sensei. Her captor. She danced while he pulled the strings.
Recess was over. She was no longer a child. She didn’t recognize the face that stared at her from the mirror. The demon’s mask kept getting in the way. Blood spilled in Ogun’s name became her calling. She was the Daughter of the Demon. And he sent her after the man she’d loved like a father for vengeance so bitter it burned her lips.
The school no longer mattered. Her father didn’t matter. Losing Piotr was a fading memory that flitted on the edges of her consciousness like a bothersome fly. She no longer ran from the pain. She dwelled within its shelter, drawing succor and letting it sustain her.
Logan sniffed, capturing the coppery tang of blood carried to him on the breeze. He opened his eyes and scowled at the sight of Kitty’s teeth worrying her lower lip until it bled. Her diligent lotus position was still stiff, and her mind was anything but clear.
“Aw, screw it,” he muttered, rising from his mat. He didn’t stop walking as he approached Kitty and hauled her to her feet and dragged her along with him. She met his gaze with wide, confused eyes.
“Where are we going? What happened to meditating?”
“We’re goin’ fer a walk. Can’t center myself with ya throwin’ off so much tension I can’t hear myself think.”
“Oh.” She twisted herself around and fell in step beside him.
“Why’d ya run, Kitty?” Without naming their destination they strolled to the beach. Soft white sand swallowed their footsteps; there was something comfortable about the faint burn of her muscles pushing against it with each stride.
“Seemed like the thing to do at the time.” It was nearly time for high tide. Kitty slipped off her shoes and allowed the incoming breaker to suck the moist, glittering sand from beneath her feet and cool her flesh.
“Gotta hand it to ya, Pryde. It took courage ta come ta Charley’s school and deal with yer gift. Ya seemed like ya weren’t afraid t’just jump right in with both feet. And when ya weren’t sure, ya didn’t make any bones about tellin’ us. That’s why ya surprised us when ya left. Twice. Goin’ ta Emma’s school and landin’ right in her hot little hands gave me gray hair. We get ya back, and it’s off ta Chicago fer some R&R, except Ororo fretted about ya from the moment ya left, Piotr’s been walkin’ around with his face draggin’ along the floor, and that blasted dragon of yours had been chewin’ the furniture since ya left. Illyana misses ya. Charley misses ya.”
“The Professor doesn’t know what to do with me. He almost booted me to the X-Babies.”
“Ya seemed determined ta give him reason. Ya made yerself a royal pain in the butt, Punkin’.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did NOT!” He snorted when her foot kicked a wave of itchy sand over his feet as they walked.
“If anyone’s an authority on bein’ a pain in the butt, Punkin’, it’s yers truly.” WHACK! Kitty yelped as he swatted her in the butt, and he broke into a run when she flashed a dangerous gleam in her eye and gave chase, shoes raised over her head to take umbrage.
They were exhausted and wind-tousled by the time they returned to the bungalow. Kitty was relaxed and peaceful, which had been the purpose of the meditation in the first place. He caught her retreating steps and her promise to start lunch before the phone rang on the side table.
“Yeah?” he muttered, dispensing with salutations. A privileged few knew where he was, and only when he allowed it. And only if he was in a good mood.
“It’s Kurt,” he announced in his faintly accented English. He sounded despondent and fretful. “Come home.”
“What’s happened?”
“Bring Katzchen home with you. There’s been a horrible accident. Something happened to Ororo.”
Logan’s fingers tightened dangerously around the receiver, and his claws popped free of their own volition. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. That’s what he got for assuming everyone could manage back at the school without him.
And this time, ‘Ro got hurt.
“I’ll be on the first flight back tonight. Kitty’s comin’ with me.”
“Can I tell her hello?” Kitty, as though on cue, peeked her head around the corner.
“Not now. There’s someone else I need ta call.” He rang off, giving Kurt the reassurances that he wouldn’t do anything rash.
He went outside after lunch and ran five miles down the beach before he was calm enough to dial Yukio’s number. When he broke the news, he heard the light leave her voice before it cracked. He had no answers or solace to offer her.
~0~
Down in the tunnels, thousands of miles away, Sarah played hide and seek with Analee’s four children, giggling behind her hands as she listened to them stumble through the muck. She was good at hiding by now, and she prided herself on being too smart to let herself get caught. The subways rumbled overhead, shaking the roof, and she wondered when the Wind-Rider would come back with more big bags of the supplies and gum like she promised. Her funny friend who made wolf-man sounds with his mouth never showed up, either, making Sarah pout. He was fun to play with; no one ever wanted to play with Sarah. She scratched her cheek, her stubby fingers scrabbling around the rough cartilage protruding through the skin.
She heard footsteps, too big and fast to belong to any of her friends. She gasped and leapt back on a shriek when Callisto poked her lean face behind the wall she hid behind and seized her by the arm.
“Sarah! Come with me NOW!” she barked, and the vein in her temple that ran just below her angry red scar throbbed. Hard, skinny arms swept Sarah up against her chest, and Sarah felt her heart pound, even through the cracked leather of her tank-cut bodice.
“We wew pwaying,” she complained petulantly. Her little legs dangled and flew out behind Cal as she carried her, and Cal swore under her breath, her patience gone.
“HUSH!”
“Whew aw’ we going?”
“We have to hide,” she snapped. “We have to run. You have to be a good girl, baby. Just do as big Cal says, and you’ll be all right.”
“Why?”
“There’s someone that doesn’t belong here. They might not be nice to us.” She hated to hedge like that, but she had no time. She just wanted to grab as many of her kin and move them out of the great tunnel, even if they had to go above ground.
Where was their precious Wind-Rider with her fucking fancy words and band-aid approach to fixing their problems? She could hide them away like good little mice, but she wasn’t there to save them.
She didn’t have time to ponder it as the screaming began, and gunshots rung out.
~0~
Two weeks later:
She could no longer hear the winds’ song. The energy patterns and currents that she saw within the atmosphere were gone. She felt blind.
She no longer commanded the rain. She as at its mercy.
A light knock on her door interrupted her reverie. She put her water pitcher aside and went to open it.
She met Rogue’s worried green eyes through the narrow crack.
“This a private pity party, shoog, or can anyone join in?”
Ororo’s only reply was to back away from the door and leave it ajar, turning her back and making Rogue feel like an interloper. She resumed her chore, namely giving the assortment of potted plants a drink from an old-fashioned aluminum watering pot. It fit, Rogue reasoned. Doing it the old-fashioned way.
“Did you need something, Rogue?”
“Naw. It’s just…Ah wanted ta ask ya what you needed. You’ve been awful quiet since what happened at the river, Storm, an’-“
“Ororo.” Her expression was solemn and tolerant, but her voice was harder than Rogue had ever heard it. “That is my name. Ororo N’Dare Munroe.”
“All right.” Rogue toyed with her gloves and seated herself on a bamboo papasan chair, looking nervous and uncomfortable. “M’sorry.”
“Storm…is just not who I am anymore.” She felt the soil of the tall ficus tree in the corner and saturated it carefully, baptizing it with tepid water and soothing words.
“Guess not. So tell me, shoog, who are ya? What’re ya fixin’ t’do now?”
“I don’t know how to answer that, nor do I know what to tell you.”
“But…yer still one of us. Yer an X-Man…heck, shoog, yer a fighter! We need you, Ororo!”
“For what?” She set down the pot and folded her arms. “It’s stretching the truth to call me an X-Man. I’m no longer a mutant. I’m more of a liability than a team leader. You’d spend more time protecting me in the field than following me.”
“Damn. That’s what ya think? Ororo…Ah came up here ta talk, and ta tell ya I’m sorry. Sorry ‘bout everything. Havin’ ya in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Ororo, ya took a hit meant fer me. Y’all didn’t want me when Ah first came here, and y’all were probably right not to. It shoulda been me. Ah mean, you were the leader. The good one, Storm, you were the boss, and a teacher, and ya’ve done so much ta hold us all together. Ya had this amazing, beautiful power. Ya don’t know what it was like, seein’ things through yer eyes. It was so damned beautiful. Bein’ so connected ta life.” She twisted and wrung her gloved hands. “All mah power does is take away what’s precious. Memories, feelin’s, powers. Ah hurt everyone Ah touch. If ya had just let me take that hit, ya’s still be flyin’ high. Ah’d be what Ah was s’posed ta be, just an ordinary Southern gal who could kiss a man without killin’ him. Ah ain’t connected ta anything, or anyone.” She leaned back into her seat and crossed her legs, swinging one booted foot. “You folks are as much of a ‘connection’ as Ah’ve got. Ah know it was hard for ya, lettin’ me in when all Ah did was try ta take ya out, when Momma was eggin’ me on. But ya gave me that chance. Ya acted like there was somethin’ worth knowin’. And if ya take off, Ah’m gonna lose the one person Ah really connected with. Ya mean more to us than yer powers. Ya gotta believe that.”
“Charles has Moira to help him in the infirmary and with school affairs. I learned what I know of hand-to-hand techniques from Logan, so he would be best suited for that duty with the new incoming students.”
“Roro, quit it; yer makin’ excuses.”
“I’m telling you the truth. Charles is already training Kitten on the use of the Danger Room and the mansion security systems. Nearly a half a dozen X-Men still reside in active, full-time status to protect the students and handle out work in the field.” She moved a spider plant away from the window and clipped off a sprig of dry brown leaves. “I’m not needed here.”
“Yer detachin’ yerself from us. And that’s a lie, anyway, sugah.”
“I don’t lie,” Ororo informed her, and her back was up. Rogue was secretly glad. Ororo had been so listless and dispirited since she returned.
“No, you don’t lie,” Kitty agreed from the doorway. She let herself in and seated herself on Ororo’s bed, hugging a small russet throw pillow against her abdomen. “You’re just following what you told me to the letter: We all travel our path alone. Big whoop. Guess it’s easier that way. You won’t feel so guilty if you leave us now. You have an excuse.” Ororo’s blue eyes flashed with indignance.
“Nothing about this is easy, Kitten! Don’t the two of you see? What do I have to offer a school for mutants? Or you?” She met their baffled looks with a faint glare. “Charles brought me here with the purpose of experiencing what the whole world had to offer, not just my own corner of it. To learn, but also, to teach, and then to lead. You’ve both exceeded what I could possibly teach you. Kitten, I hardly recognize you anymore. You’ve grown so much.” Her voice was nostalgic, and the warm admiration in her face made Kitty feel a rush of hope.
“You were the reason I came here, y’know. Piotr was cute, the Prof made me nervous, and Logan was scary, but you were the one who made me feel like everything would be all right. I didn’t feel like a freak, and when everything at home was falling apart, I had you.”
“I will always be your friend, Kitten. I care about you so much.”
“Sure you do. That’s what Piotr said before he dumped me. That’s what everyone says before they leave.” Kitty chucked the pillow aside. “Let’s go, Rogue. We can’t make her stay if she’s all fired up to leave. Ororo, I rushed home to see you. I didn’t know it was just to say goodbye.” She phased through the door to the loft, and Rogue sighed.
“Kid’s got a point.” She poised herself by the door. “Ah’ve said mah piece.” She no sooner opened it when a gruff voice made Ororo freeze in the act of tucking a plant food spike into a large terra cotta pot.
“Maybe I ain’t said mine.” Logan looked dangerous, the corners of his mouth petulant and unappeased. Ororo straightened up to her full six feet and stared him down, her arms crossed beneath her breasts. She peered at Rogue, who was watching the scene with interest. Logan directed his words at her, even though his eyes were still locked on the pair shooting off blue sparks. “Scram, kid.”
“Um. Yeah. Heh.” She skedaddled, but not before Kitty phased up through the floor as she reached the end of the hall. She grabbed Rogue’s gloved hand.
“Maybe we can hear them from beneath the floor?” Kitty suggested on a whisper.
SLAM! Rogue and Kitty both flushed and fled.
“Ooooooooo,” Rogue declared, not wanting to be in Ororo’s shoes for a change. “Wish Ah was a fly on the wall.” Kitty phased them back down to the second floor.
Logan’s eyes flicked briefly over the profusion of plants. “Thought ya gave all of these away.”
“They keep finding a new home here. Every time I walk inside this loft, there’s another one mysteriously left there to greet me. And the students look strangely guilty.” The corner of her mouth quirked. Logan grunted at her, unamused.
“Ya just take off as soon as anyone’s back’s turned.”
“You would know.” One platinum eyebrow arched itself in challenge.
“That ain’t you.”
“This isn’t me!” she snapped. “I can’t sense the energy within these accursed plants. I can’t hear them anymore.”
“Ya used ta hear plants?” he scowled, somewhat baffled.
“Anything that springs from the earth.”
“Useful enough, if ya wanna be Charlie’s gardener, but not worth missin’ much. Ya water ‘em, ya give ‘em some air, an’ they grow. Problem solved.” His cavalier attempt at consoling her wasn’t well received.
‘What do you think you know about my problem?”
“I think yer lettin’ it eat you up. The Storm I know -"
“ORORO!” Her face was thunderous. “There’s no Storm in this room, Wolverine!” His mouth flattened into a thin line.
“The Storm I know,” he continued, “hated bein’ locked up inside all day, moping about losses she couldn’t change. The Storm I know didn’t keep burying herself outta sight and clamming up like a little mouse.” The image was ludicrous in her mind as she stood staring down into his eyes. “Life’s fer the livin,’ darlin’, even if I hafta drag ya kickin’ and screamin’ back to it!”
“I dare you to try.” Logan exhaled gustily and cracked his knuckles.
Moments later, Logan got a mouthful of the back of Ororo’s shoulder as she struggled to free herself from his hold, as unyielding as a grizzly’s when he hoisted her up. Her arms were pinned to her sides as she cursed him in Egyptian. Her heels bounced off his shins and knees, bruising wherever they landed, but he carried out his self-appointed task and flung open the balcony doors. Cool, moist air beckoned to her, but Ororo shrank away from the dim sunlight dappling the ledge.
“The Storm I know… shit! That don’t tickle, darlin’! The Storm I know craved light and life. She didn’t take anyone’s shit, and she didn’t shrivel up and die when something knocked her down.”
“Let me go! Don’t make me do something we both regret, Wolverine!”
“Like what? What’re you gonna do? Big, bad Storm coulda given me a run fer my money. Ororo can’t cut the mustard, from the looks of it. Ya might look like her, but ya ain’t got the fire and sass Storm always had!”
“The devil you say!” She struggled against him, her muscles beginning to burn, and she shivered against the breeze that whipped up and ruffled her hair, fortifying her. “It would have been better if that blast had killed me! I’m no one now! I have nothing! You don’t understand!”
“I know ya don’t believe that,” he rasped beside her ear. “If anyone knows anything about wantin’ ta die when ya got nothin’ ta live for, yer lookin’ at him.” He loosened his grip and let herself free from him, and she spun on him, wielding her words like knives.
“You don’t know what it’s like, Wolverine! My mother and father died protecting me, and I was lost for so long! The Bright Lady gave me a gift in exchange for what she took from me, and she made me her daughter. I was a guardian of every creature that walks, swims or flies. She blessed me with a precious burden to protect life and nurture it, and I’ve failed.”
“Bullshit.” Logan didn’t believe in a higher power that could take anything more from him than what he’d already lost. But he wouldn’t belittle her faith.
“Everything happens for a reason,” she reminded him.
“That reason’s on government payroll and rebuildin’ that fancy penthouse, last Rogue told me.” She threw up her hands as though she were explaining it to a child.
“I’m. Not. Worthy,” she spat. His hackled relaxed, and he unclenched his fists, the wind suddenly taken from his sails.
“Aw, ‘Ro, damn it…” She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself before she turned her back on him.
“You heard me. I can’t lead you. I can’t lead the Morlocks. I can’t protect anyone, and I won’t have you obligated to protect me.”
“Then maybe yer fergettin’ somethin’, darlin’. I don’t take obligations lightly, and I only place ‘em on myself.”
“I can protect myself.”
“And I protect what I love.” She froze and Logan heard the hitch in her breath. Her scent flew back in the breeze to stroke his senses and entice him. “And yer gonna catch yer death out here like that.” She wasn’t dressed for the chill in the air, but she stubbornly stood her ground. You’re the one who insisted on this little excursion, she mentally accused him.
“What did you say?” She didn’t turn all the way around to meet his eyes, so all he saw was a glimpse of her patrician profile.
“I’m grabbin’ you a jacket,” he grumbled evasively, realizing that somewhere in the last few things he’d said he’s suddenly lost ground and shown his hand.
“Oh, I think not,” she retorted, and her voice held more starch, telling him his pep talk was helping, even if it wasn’t in the way that he’d hoped. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Ya wanted me ta take a flyin’ leap a minute ago, and ya acted like ya were gonna follow me down when ya were spoutin’ off this ‘I’m not worthy’ crap. Wasn’t too long ago a certain woman told me I was worthy when I was feelin’ like shit, and like my life had gone ta hell. I lost someone precious, even though she was so close, but just hoverin’ out of fingertips’ reach. That certain women saw somethin’ in me worth tryin’ ta pull bacl from the ledge. That woman held me and cried fer me when I was done with tears, and made me feel like my dirty hands were clean again. Like I was worth something. Vital. Needed. Cared for.” She stood motionless over the balcony rail.
“You didn’t need me to tell you that.”
“The fuck I didn’t.”
“Mariko loves you with every breath.”
“She ain’t dyin’ without me.” His arms still craved the feel of her, even struggling. There was a vestige of her scent clinging to his clothes, and he held himself back from reaching for the source.
“I think she is.” Upon their return from Tokyo, Ororo had placed Mariko’s letter in Logan’s aluminum safebox of keepsakes in his closet, knowing he would want to re-read it and savor it again when it didn’t hurt as much. She remembered those eloquent words in her copperplate script and sighed.
“Guess it chaps my hide that I can’t return the favor an’ show that woman I was just tellin’ ya about that she needs ta follow her own advice and quit hidin’. Yer just lickin’ yer wounds, but they’re still bleedin’. And for the record, darlin’, that woman’s name was Storm.”
“She’s gone.” Her voice shook.
“No, she ain’t.” She reached up to lace her fingers behind her neck, and her shoulders slumped. It was like watching her wilt.
The breeze picked up, making the trees sway, and the clouds rolled and billowed in a darkening blanket.
“I won’t keep you.”
“I ain’t leavin’ you.”
“Then you’re very stubborn and wasting your time.”
“I’ve got nothing but time, ‘Ro.” She wouldn’t budge. “But let me know if I’m wastin’ yours. If pinin’ away over this is all ya want, and nothin’ else’ll make the pain go away, then end it. Jump.” She finally faced him, and shock was written over her features.
“Logan…” Her mask had slipped; the omission of his codename made him hope.
“Ya don’t wanna live. Ya don’t wanna let anyone in, especially this old soldier who’s dyin’ a little each time ya shut him out. Fallin’ might feel like flyin’ for about ten seconds, ‘Ro. Four stories up. Can’t hurt the kids or Charlie or Petey, Elf and Kitty any more than ya are now. Do it.” Her heart hammered, and she didn’t feel the drizzle of rain kissing her arms, exposed by her kaftan.
“Yukio was my teacher, Wolverine,” she murmured. “Don’t put it past me.”
“Then don’t put this past me: I love you.” He didn’t make a move toward her, not wanting her to turn around and make good on her threat.
“Liar.” The rain pelted the roof and began to pool in the gutters.
“Ain’t never lied to ya, darlin’.” She shook her head, and her chin trembled. “I want the woman who held me in the rain. I want the woman who’s followed me ta hell and brought me home. She’s stubborn as a damned mule, though, and she’s probably getting’ cold.” He closed the gap between them and reached for her hands, which were now covering her mouth, and pried them away. Her entire body tensed, screaming for the contact, but she stood fast. His thumbs stroked her knuckles as he lifted them to his own lips, his warm breath bathing her flesh. “I love that woman. Not just the high and mighty goddess. Not just the hero, the teacher, or the good little soldier in a pretty uniform. I love a real woman who talks in her sleep and tastes like lemon drops.” She was trembling; he only warmed her hands. He wouldn’t make her come in from the cold; she had to figure that out for herself. “I love her sass.” He kissed her fingertips, and he felt her eyes devouring him hungrily, but still kept his own down, studying her smooth skin and slender hands. He turned one of them face up and brought it to his cheek, leaning into its softness. The rain was soaking him, but he didn’t care.
“Blast you,” she hissed. “You “ you think you can say you love me, and…” She shook her head. He nodded, and his eyes silenced her. Raw emotion blazed within their depths. Concern and pain warred with passion and a need so intense it burned her.
“Not think. I know. And I’ll say it til ya believe me.” The winds howled and buffeted them, tearing at their drenched clothing. She returned her fingers to his lips to hush him, but he chanted it into her flesh. “I love you, ‘Ro. Love ya do damned much I can’t think.” Saline and raindrops mingled on her cheeks.
Wordlessly she enveloped him, holding onto him like a life raft. He smothered a groan of relief and returned the embrace. His hands warmed her, flattening against her back in greedy caresses, and he heard himself offering soothing words amidst the din of the storm. The rhythm of his breathing was all she heard, and she took shelter in the hard, sculpted planes of his body, and he felt her heart slamming inside her chest. She drew back and bit back a sob, but she cradled his face within her palms.
“Then a certain woman’s about ready to come inside.” She breathed a sultry trail of kisses starting at his hairline down the bridge of his nose, gradually, sweetly landing on his mouth. Her kiss replaced oxygen and nearly threw him off balance, but his arms tightened around her just as desperately as they had when he brought her to the balcony. She melted against him, deepening the kiss and basking in his heat and strength. She broke the kiss just long enough to breathe.
“You’re an infuriating, stubborn, hardheaded man.”
“Uh-huh.” His smile was lazy and wicked before he leaned up and caressed her throat with his lips, grazing her pulse with his teeth. She moaned and trembled as the rain lashed her back wherever his arms didn’t reach.
“And I loved you from the moment we met.” She might as well have socked him in the gut.
“Shit.”
“I love you, Logan.” She memorized his features with her eyes, savoring the moment that passed between them and the soft look of affection and quiet passion, just for her.
“Yer not just gonna tell me that and jump off the roof? Just ta spite me one last time, darlin’?”
“That’s only fun when you can fly. Yukio never convinced me any differently, though she tried.”
“She’s carryin’ a torch for ya.”
“Tell her my heart’s already taken.” Her fingers combed through his dripping hair. “Logan?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we go inside?” She kissed him again, stealing his reply from his lips, and he found himself nearly stumbling backward toward the door. He kicked it shut after him and growled in triumph as she pounced on him. Her hands stroked him and explored him, impatiently tugging aside the barrier of his clothes. Her kaftan hit the floor with a wet plop, and he couldn’t get his fill of her, lapping her satiny skin dry. He drank the rain from its hiding places in every dip and sweet hollow of her body, and she clung to him, tugging that marvelously thick hair to encourage him back to her neck.
“Don’tcha ever tell me yer not worthy, or that ya failed. I need my ‘Ro.”
“I need you,” she breathed, and she moaned as his palm cupped her breast, making her tingle. He warmed each nipple in the velvety heat of his mouth as he suckled her. She felt the pull of sensations pooling in her womb and feminine center and cried out for more.
And he gave her more. They tumbled onto the bed and took shelter in each other’s bodies and searching hands. The press of Logan’s body covering hers, the luxurious feel of his taut muscles and warm skin covered with a crisp mat of hair thrilled her. No inch of her body was left untasted or uncherished. He wanted to drown in her caress, even though he knew she’d always pull him back to shore.
“I love you,” he cried out. He repeated it as he laced his fingers through hers and stretched her hands above her head, rocking his mouth over hers as he thrust home. He groaned in delight as he sank into her hot, wet silk, and she moved beneath him like a wanton.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Love me with everything you have. I’ve wanted you too long. Far too long.” Her words died away as he swiveled and pistoned his hips, and she was lost in the feel of him. The maelstrom raged outside, and the scene of rain enhanced the fragrance of Ororo’s plants, the only audience to the play of limbs atop the mattress. Her legs locked around his waist as he rode her, his voice exultant as he grated out her name.
“Oh, God! Ororo! Need you,” he insisted. “Love you…” She clamped down around him, increasing the friction as he pulsed within her until everything else fell away. He couldn’t get enough of her. He couldn’t stop thrusting, filling her, plunging faster, harder, knowing he couldn’t ride his own high unless she came with him. He needed her with him, as badly as water and air.
“Logan! GODDESS! So good,” she moaned. “You feel so good. I love you. Love you,” she chanted. Their bodies were slicked with sweat and sensitive to every touch. Their eyes met, and she cradled that determined face that she loved in her palms. Her kiss scorched him. Nourished him. She felt her climax waiting, coming to claim her. Her nails raked his back and he roared, his hips reflexively pounding into her until she bucked. Her eyes beseeched him to follow her, and the clench of her muscles squeezing him undid him. His body jerked, and he bowed his face into the nook of her shoulder as he came; their bodies rocked together in sync, and she wouldn’t let go.
Their breathing was ragged as they sprawled in a limp tangle.
Above them, the rain dwindled to a fine mist, dripping in slow, narrow runnels across the skylight. For a fleeting moment, Ororo swore she felt the retreating roll of thunder, but it was Logan’s heartbeat, which she palmed over his back.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.