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“AAAHHHH!”

“Fuck,” Logan cursed as he nearly fell over himself, his sleep addled mind unable to manage his muscled frame. “Watch it will ya.” He cursed loudly, a slew of curses following those words, both towards the witch that had woken him up and towards himself for being such a klutz.
“Watch it? Watch it? You watch it.” Ororo cursed from behind the shower curtain, her soapsuds covered face sticking out from just above the edge of the tub. The fact that Logan was practically naked, and taking a whiz not three feet from her made her go all shades of red. “Get out,” she demanded.
“Hahn,” Logan flipped one hand, his action causing Ororo to blush even harder as his aim once again wavered from its intended target.

“GET OUT,” she cried out again, louder, not that it would have any affect on anyone staying in the next room. The motel they had taken up residence in, although better than sleeping in the truck, wasn’t all that safe or respectable either. That much had been cleared the second the front clerk asked Logan how many hours he wanted the room for.

“Shaddup,” Logan's alcohol (according to Ororo) and sleep husked voice disregarded her. As far as he was concerned, it was he who was paying for the room and that gave him the right to do whatever, whenever and wherever he wanted.

His morning watering the garden done, he ran the flush, flopped down the cover and settled down on top of the toilet seat as if it was the most normal thing to do.

Ororo couldn’t believe what was happening. One second she is enjoying the first proper bath and the second a ‘reluctantly’ boxer clad Logan is strolling in through the bathroom door as if it were the goddamn Central Park. Now, this was the limit. He was just sitting there, one hand scratch the back of his head and hair, while the other clenched and unclenched at his knee, almost as if he was getting those claws of his going. “What are you doing?”
“Thinkin’.” Ororo couldn’t believe her ears, she’d stopped believing her eyes, at what she was hearing. She’d heard about men thinking while sitting on the crapper, it seemed to get their brains going, but this, this put a whole new twist to it.
“Yeah, well, go think some where else,” she lifted soapy hand from the water, pointing to the door, her other one trying to get as much of the fluffy stuff to her ‘right’ places as possible. “Or come back later and….”

“I said shut up,” Logan cut her with a snarl. “What the fuck are you doing up at this time?” It was middle of the night for crying out aloud. Time to sleep and have wet dreams about some boy-band pimply or some pansy assed actor, or whatever women did at night. Not that he cared or knew about such things. He wasn’t concerned. All he needed was a good night’s lay and that was it. Fuck the feeling talking shit.

“Why? Its nearly seven. Morning time, time to get up,” her seemingly mocking and equal amounts condescending answer caused Logan to literally slap himself in his face.
“I liked her better when she couldn’t talk,” Logan grumbled under this breath. Ever since she got her speech and her memories back, Ms. Nutbuster had been nothing but trouble. First, she fried his ass while getting those memories of her. Shit, was that painful. He just hoped that the next time such thing happened to her, he wasn’t even remotely near her or she near him and his truck. His metal covered skeleton provided an ideal conductor for whatever electricity shit she drew out. Drew out, because whatever it was didn’t seem to come from her, or did it? Hell, he was too busy getting his insides pickled to pay any attention to such minor details such as whether the thing came out of the air, her hands or her ass.

Then, there was the slut-o act at the bar. She was lucky she got away from that hand…..lucky that he was there.

Last but not the least was what had happened three days ago.

---

//Flashback//

“Uh, thank you,” Ororo muttered meekly at the man standing next to her, both of their, well her face and in Logan’s case his ears showing their barely suppressed embarrassment as the counter lady processed the package before her.

For his answer, Logan dumbly nodded, wanting to be anywhere else but here. “This okay?”
“Umm-hmmm,” Ororo answered without looking up to make eye contact with him. She wasn’t embarrassed by what she was buying, it was a perfectly normal requirement. The problem was whom she was buying it with and how she had to ask him to get it for her.

Logan gritted his teeth as the freakin’ counter hag sounded out their purchase. ‘She couldn’t just let it go, could she?’

“One jumbo sized package of Stayfree long lasting super absorbent pads, with wings.”

//End Flashback//

-----

“Uh, hello,” the smooth, but currently irritated voice, drew his attention to the present. “Having a bath here.”
“So?”
“So? What do you mean, so?” Liquid blue eyes flashed with indignation. “So, that means I don’t have clothes on. So, that means pick your hairy man-butt up and let your hairy legs carry you out of here.”
“Man….butt?” Logan repeated slowly, shaking his head at the mouth on this woman. Woman. That was what he thought of her now. Young woman, but woman nevertheless. Having eaten properly food, (Read, non-veg. three times a day) had put some meat on her bones. What neither of them realized was that this personality of Ororo’s was not so much as her own as it was a subconscious reflection what she saw and absorbed from Logan. Her own, her real personality was still nowhere in sight….except for certain bits and pieces, the chief among them being her thieving skills and her waking up early.
“Yeah, man-butt.” Ororo stressed on both words. “Now get out.”

“Yeah, yeah. Stop yer yappin’,” Logan snapped at her as he stood up and walked to the door. “I’m gonna get some sleep, so keep yer trap shut. Don’t wake me up. I’ll get up when its time.”
“What do you mean, when its time?” Ororo demanded of him. “Its morning already. Its time.”
“Fer freaks like you maybe,” Logan’s response was just as prompt. “Not for normal people.” He really needed to do something about her. Ever since she had started moving on her own, she’d starting waking at the crack of dawn. Hell knows what she did at that time. It wasn’t as if either of them had a fuck-to-five job or something.
“Normal people like you, you mean,” Ororo really wanted to stand up, place her hands on her hips and full on confront him, but given her current condition, dared not do. “Which one was it last night? The red head bimbo or the dyed blonde hag?” She demanded about the two waitresses who had been horning over Logan and he was letting them….and right in front of her. What was she? Chopped liver or something?
“Both of them,” Logan grinned over his shoulder, giving a perfect viewing of the aforementioned hairy man-butt of his. In truth, it had been neither. Dropping her off at the motel, Logan had driven the two-hour route to this contact’s meeting place. There was some information about the girl he was looking for. Not wanting to involve Ororo and still not completely trusting her, he made the round journey alone, only returning around four in the morning to their shared two-bed motel room.
“Ughn,” Ororo turned her face away from him, oddly feeling slightly hurt by his put-off of her. Not that she liked the guy or anything, but this was the limit. Screwing some two-bit sluts and then coming to sleep with….uh, coming to sleep IN the same room as her.

“By the way,” Logan’s voice sounded from the other side of the door now. “I’ve seen ya. Yer legs are going the same way as mine….and so is yer hairy woman-butt.” He made that last comment only to rankle Ororo and it worked.

“Yeah, I was in club-mutant-spa, right? Had a ton of time for waxing and shaving.”

The ensuing laughter only served to enrage her more, causing her to yell out at the top of her lungs.

“JACKASS.”

----

Present time,

“Aw, come on,” Alison huffed as she leaned against the side of the warehouse cum studio for the young man she was currently in conversation with. “How about you and me go and make some art of our own.”
“No, thank you,” the at least a foot taller artist answered as he gathered his paint and brushes. His concentration and mood wasn’t for painting…not anymore.

“Why?” The spiky haired rocker demanded, mostly in surprise over being refused, and that too by such a hunk of met….muscle.
“I-I am busy.”
“Busy doing what?” She gestured towards the canvas. “Drawing stupid landscapes. Why don’t you and me go inside and you can paint me, my portrait. I’ll even do it naked for ya.”
“I am sure you will.”

Although spoken evenly and no hint of sarcasm, the answer pissed off Alison. Here she was, giving the guy, a normal guy a chance of a lifetime and he was just chucking it away.

‘He’s not normal, is he?’ A softer, gentler inner voice called out from within her. A voice she seldom paid attention to. ‘There is something about him that is pulling you to him. Why can’t you try and do normal for once?’ Her brow twisting in a frown, she told that voice to shove it and turned again to the man in question.

“Hey, I am not a slut or anything?” She yelled to the grey-overall clad painter. She’d met him a couple of times since she and Lila came to this place in the middle of nowhere. The driver that brought them, that dickhole Logan, made them wear blindfolds for over an hour. If the ride and company hadn’t been so shitty, she might’ve even enjoyed the kinkiness of it.
“I did not say you were,” the heavily accented voice answer.

“What’s with you?” Alison walked right up to the young man and poked him in the chest, which for her was right at her eyelevel. “I’m smoking hot, and I’ve got a thing for stupid accents. Why won’t you get with me?”
“For one thing,” deep blue eyes regarded her. “You are not who you say you are.”
“What do you mean?” Alison barely covered her surprise.
“You are hiding something,” the eyes were boring into her now. “You seem to have a mask on,” he gestured to her whole punk look including her numerous tattoos and piercings. “A mask you use to hide the real you.”

“Ooo, good one Yakov,” Alison cursed herself for the shake in her voice. ‘How does he know?’ “What’s the other thing?” The bitch front came on. “I’m too skinny for your tastes?”
“No,” the barest of smiles passed over his smooth chiseled face. “You have more metal in your skin than I do. We would scrape.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” A full body scan revealed no piercings on ‘Yakov’. In fact except for his boots, there wasn’t a single piece of metal on the man’s body. “You don’t have any metal. What, you got ding-a-ling pierced or something?”

CLANGKK!!

“Holy shit,” Alison stumbled back, nearly falling over as a metallic hand reached forward and grabbed her. “What the….what are you?” She looked up at the metal giant who in the blink of an eye had just grown a foot taller.

“I am ….or something.”

----

Back in the mansion,

“I went to Japan?” Asked Ororo, her eyes wide in surprise.
“Yeah,” Logan nodded, his own hazels ones never leaving the beautiful visage of his wife, his Ms. Nutbuster….well, Mrs. Nutbuster now. “An’ Thailand, India, Afghanistan,” he started counting from the east. “Also, went to Morocco a coupla times. Once after Kendall came.”
“Why Morocco?” She asked in confusion. Having no memories of any of this, she was surprised as to why she would go to a country completely unknown to her…..and why not to her homeland.
“Yer from there,” it was Logan’s turn to be confused now. “At least that’s what ya remembered then.”
“I am not from Morocco,” Ororo shook her head.

This was hers and Logan’s second session of the day. The previous one had been cut short when Logan revealed the truth about her to their daughter. The reaction wasn’t anything like Ororo expected….or maybe it was. Instead of jumping onto or away from her, the young girl slowly reached forward as if seeing and touching her mother for the first time, her hazel eyes repeatedly turning to her father for confirmation.

“Mama,” Ororo broke down sobbing at the single simple word that made her maternal status whole, complete….made her ‘a mother’.

Logan sat by silently, his own eyes threatening to moisten up as yet another part of his broken heart and broken family seemed to fall into place and mend itself. If Ororo could accept and love Kendall and Laura, maybe there was hope for him too,

“Then where are ya from?” He asked in confusion.
“Why do you say I am from Morocco?” Ororo put up her own question.
“Well, ‘cause that’s what ya remembered an’ told me.”

With that, he began telling her about the history that she had no memory of….one that was false to her.

“Ya were born in Morocco and yet parents died when ya were six years old. After that, ya begged to eat and finally got into stealin’ to survive. When ya were ten ya met an old coot that started training ya, and by the time ya turned eleven ya got into boosting cars. That went on for about five years until the old man bought the ticket to the big-boost in the sky. After that, things didn’t seem to work for you…..a year later ya smuggled into America. It was there where the Weapon X assholes found ya.”

By the time he finished recounting her tale, Ororo had gone even more silent at the close similarities and yet glaring differences in the true life story and the one that Logan had told her.

“Its not like that,” she shook her head and started on what she knew as the truth. “Meeting the old man and learning from him, that much is the same, but the rest is different.”
“What do you mean?”

“I was born in America,” she began, telling him about her parents, her birth in Harlem, their subsequent death in Egypt, her turning to begging and eventually stealing, finding her teacher, learning from him and developing her skills. Then she went on to tell him the really eye-popping details of how she traversed nearly half of Africa, to find the tribe she called as her own and where she was regarded and treated as a Goddess. “It was there that Charles approached me to join the X-Men, when I was around seventeen,” she continued. “He brought me back to the US and resumed with my training and education. Except for the two years….” She hesitated at saying, with you. “Except the two and half years away, there is where I have been ever since.”

‘And now?’ The question was on Logan’s lips, but did not come out. ‘Not yet. It’s too soon.’

----

Back in the past,

“Fuck,” Logan cursed, a louder than usual, both for the worsening weather and to draw the attention of the eerily silent Ororo sitting next to him.

They had been on the road for about an hour now, and the rate at which the weather conditions were going, he would have to pull over soon. ‘Shouldn’ta left the motel,’ he frowned at himself. The weather forecast had said about a mere smattering of snow, not a full-scale storm. ‘Assholes. Don’t know shit.’

What neither he nor his passenger noticed was that the weather was having an affect on Ororo, causing her emotional state, which, given her current state of mind were going haywire, to worsen even further. That in turn was having an affect on the weather, forming a vicious circle.

“I can’t remember my family, my parents,” she had said to him, speaking in a near whisper as if only to herself and not to anyone else. Her memories still hadn’t come back completely, with huge blank patches over the years of her life.

Not knowing how to respond or even comfort her, Logan had grunted a pathetic, “It’ll come back,” knowing from experience that it might not, and even if it did it might be years, even decades before it did.

All her usual sprite and sassiness was missing as they bundled into the truck, Logan carrying his bag, while Ororo hefting the one that he had bought her, along with the clothes, soap, shampoo and other women things that she’d asked for or those he thought she might need. They were on their way to Toronto and then to Niagara. In Toronto, he had a couple of contacts who might be able to get her across the border legally or illegally, depending on the money you send their way. He was in a hurry to get there and then back on the trail of he illusive girl he had been following for so long now. However, at the same time he found himself thinking about how he’d the miss the firecracker next to him. Only if she’d stay here in Canada, better in Alberta. She wasn’t like the usual women he came across, the wham-bam kick off the stand kind woman. Even with her crude and sometimes rude behavior, he could sense calmness just below the surface. Almost as if her exterior persona was a mask to hide the true her….a her, he felt himself wanting to know.

---

“Ororo,” he called out softly, his foot automatically stomping on the brake at her answer and the state she was in.

“Y-y-y-esss,” Ororo stuttered, her lips blue with a cold that wasn’t present anywhere inside the truck.
“What the…?” His eyes the size of saucers, Logan stared at the visible vapor coming out of Ororo’s mouth. Not only was she cold, she was freezing. In a twenty-two degree Celsius, truck interior.
“W-what?” Thrown against her seatbelt, Ororo tried to manage a scowl as she looked at Logan staring at her. Her usually lively, melodious voice, weak and hoarse with cold, she whispered, trying to put all her energy there.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Logan lifted a finge at her. “Yer fuckin’ freezin’.”
“Its cold,” a shaky hand lifted towards the window.
Logan growled at her obvious and useless answer. “Yeah, outside. Not in here. An’ you don’t feel cold.”
“I-I don’t?” Ororo asked as if it was news to her. Why else was she wearing those warm clothes Logan bought her.

‘Wait a second,’ Logan’s subconscious piped. ‘Wait one goddamn freakin’ second. Storm,” he recalled the name on the dog tags. The same dog tags that had the name Ororo stamped. The ones that had been in her neck and were lying somewhere in the snow or trees or wherever they landed when he chucked them. Electricity. Lightening-strike. Air and weather. Not feel cold. ‘What the fuck?’ A sort of realization dawned on him. She wasn’t named Storm ‘cause it was just a stylish name, it might have actually something to do with her mutation.

“Logan,” Ororo’s barely audible whisper shook him out of his ‘the thinker’ mode.

“I’m cold.”

----

“How are ya feelin’ now?” Logan’s concern was clear in his eyes even if his voice as gruff as ever. ‘Just don’t die, okay,’ was his silent wish. He still couldn’t understand what had gone wrong with Ororo. Just this morning she had been ready to ‘shock’ me a new one over walking in on her in the bathroom….and now, now she was stone cold and growing colder by the second.

The fact that there wasn’t even a moan of an answer from the near unconscious Ororo was signal enough for him.

He had already loaded her with all the warm clothing he had with him, including both his sleeping bags, including the newer one, which he had been using himself while Ororo had the older one. Cranking up the heater to maximum had worked a little, but something told Logan that it wouldn’t hold for long…..not if the weather outside stayed the same, which another nagging suspicion told him was linked to Ororo’s emotional and physical condition.

“Fuck,” he cursed, running a frustrated hand through his hair repeatedly. What was he supposed to do when the cause and effect were so strongly linked that they were driving each other. On top of that was the ever present possibility that there might be another lash-out and he would be caught in the bulls-eye, this time within his truck.

Letting out a sigh of, here goes nothing, he took his jacket off before reaching down to unbuckle his belt.

“Just don’t fry me, okay.”

-----

What neither Logan nor the near unconscious amnesiac Ororo knew then, was, even as they were enroute to their destination, they were being tracked…not by one but three hunters.

One of whom was on their trail….even today, in the present.

----

A couple of days ago, back in the ‘deceased’ Magneto’s base,

“They are here Magneto,” Mystique intimated her boss. With his recent death, Magneto had availed himself with a fresh start, dumping all his past plans, well, except for the mutant domination one. In the process, he also let go of a few of his followers, including his son Pietro. This necessitated his to draw (mainly through Mystique) to draw in new blood. Currently his supporters, his team consisted of only five members including him. That was about to change in the next few minutes.

“Bring them in Mystique,” Magneto spoke into the communicator, not paying any attention to the sullen look on his own daughter’s face. He knew that she was still moping over his cutting of Pietro, but didn’t think too much into it. She’d get over it, and even if she didn’t, it didn’t concern him as long as she did what he ordered her to do.

---

The door slid and the blue skinned shape-shifter sashayed through it, with four very different looking men, two of whom seemed to have their eyes stuck permanently at her shapely behind.

“Forge, Toad,” Magneto’s baritone boomed in the room, instantly snapping both drooling testosterone-factories into attention.
“Uh, sorry boss,” Toad dipped his head in apology. ‘Seems like the old man wants some of blue-lovin’ for himself.’

Sending a cursory glance around the room, Magneto raised a hand to the first person in line, gesturing him to introduce himself.

“Toad.” A long prehensile tongue shot of the mutant’s mouth, grabbing onto the rafter overhead to lift him up. For his second show, he shot out what seemed like a goop like substance onto a ‘testing’ control panel, instantly covering and shorting out it. The others may nor may not have been impressed by it, but what he did next nearly made them all retch. Just like his namesake, his tongue zoned in, shot out and captured a fly buzzing near the window. “I can do a lot of things with it,” he suggestively wiggled his eyebrows and tongue at both Mystique and Wanda.

“Forge,” the second man introduced himself. He did not reveal anything about his past with Xavier and his X-Men, because Magneto had forbidden him to. Amongst the group, he was the only one who knew and had worked before with the Master of Magnetism. “I make things,” he said simply. “Made this,” he gestured around the room they were standing in. It was true, as it was during the secret construction of this new base that Mystique, on behalf of Magneto, approached and recruited the inventor.

Next was a huge blob of the man, with the same name. “Blob,” he grunted between chews and a handful of potato chips. “I am the immovable one,” he boasted, scraps of chips sticking to the front of his teeth.

The last and most definitely the tallest of the group was a young man who looked as if he would be anywhere but here. “I am called Colossus,” was the only introduction he gave, not going any further to show or even explain his powers. The only reason he was here was because the blue and red clad man before him had something over him that was very near to him, a thing for which he would do anything, even kill.

“Colossus, Blob, Forge and Toad,” Magneto repeated them down the line. “Welcome to the future.”

“Welcome to the *Brotherhood of Mutants*.”

Note: Character description. (Sorry Rhapsody, I was going to bring this one in earlier)

Piotr Rasputin (Colossus): Was initially going to place him with the X-Men, but seeing his interaction with Wolverine (both in 616 and Ultimate universe), flipped sides. Takes a lot from the Ultimate X-Men as the age and background of the character is similar to them





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