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* * *

Ororo watched Logan go, wondering why he had been sitting in a darkened hallway giggling to himself.  Which was when she heard Jean's voice coming from the kitchen.

"So we're expecting our answer, say, two months from now?"

Storm's hearing was much better than that of a "normal" human — not *quite* as good as Logan's, but sharp enough to clearly make out the conversation down the hall.  Which she realized meant that Logan had no doubt been sitting there eavesdropping.  Curiosity engaged, she headed for the kitchen.

"Guess so.  But what happens if we *don't* know by then?"

Ororo entered the room in time to respond to Dani's question.  "Don't know *what* by then?"  She had nearly asked why Logan had found their discussion so amusing, but the memory of his signal for silence led her to hold her peace for the moment.

Bets and Dani looked taken aback, but Jean didn't mind adding Ro to the gossip session.  "We're betting on why Logan turned me down when I gave him a chance and talked Betsy into posing as his lover."  

Appreciating the way Jean had deliberately left out the reason why she had felt compelled to play along, Bets amplified on the remark.  "Dani thinks he's gay, I think he's been up to something naughty with Jubilee.  Jean says it's Kitty."

"We're betting on it.  Once we know what it is, we all go out to RESTAURANT and the losers split the winner's bill," Dani added.

"Hmm."  Ororo considered this as she pulled a mug out of the cabinet.  Not much got past her — for example, she had actually known about Betsy and Dani's relationship, though not that Logan's relationship with Bets was an outright sham.  And she had previously inferred from what Jean did and did not say about her argument with Scott that an attempt to satisfy the long-held curiosity about Logan's bedroom abilities had not worked out as hoped for.  Putting the facts together, along with the suppositions offered, Ororo remembered a few things not mentioned by the others.

"In that case, I will have to say Rogue, if only because the three of you have taken the other obvious answers." [And because it would explain why Logan so hates seeing Remy with her.]

"All right.  So getting back to my question — if Logan's little secret *doesn't* go public in a couple of months, then what do we do?"

Jean looked thoughtful.  "I just realized — graduation is in two months.  If it *is* one of the girls, could be that he thinks they can go public then."

"And if they don't?"

"If they don't, then we don't find out."  Bets shrugged.  "We can go out anyway, and everyone foots her own bill.  Celebrate the end of the school year."

"In that case, may I suggest the week after graduation?"  Ro poured some coffee over her sugar.

"Maybe Wednesday night — restaurants tend to be slow then.  Not on a weekend."

Betsy and Dani nodded in agreement.

"Wednesday after graduation it is." [And I don't think I'll be helping to pay for anyone else's dinner...  INSERT COMMENT ABOUT RESTAURANT]

* * *

* * *

It had to happen sooner or later, and Logan was expecting it sooner.  Whatever the true facts of the matter, Remy would feel as though the other man had eloped with *his* girl — and being the kind of man to leap to the attack whenever threatened, Gambit would be bound to confront Wolverine on the matter.

Logan couldn't have been farther from non-confrontational himself.  After the constraints of the past year that had forced him to let certain matters slide where the Cajun was concerned, he was beyond ready for open warfare to be declared.  So when LeBeau found him in the rec room — sparsely populated for once, at this hour of the morning on a Wednesday — he could barely contain his glee.

Taking up a hipshot stance a few steps into the room, Gambit folded his arms and glared.  The odd red-and-black eyes lent themselves well to a forbidding stare, as did the height, but Logan was unimpressed.  "You got somethin' on your mind, kid?"  He took an elaborately casual swig of beer, not bothering to keep his eyes on Remy after that first brief glance.  Refusing to watch him with the attention that a genuine threat would deserve, or to notice what a strikingly imposing figure Gumbo probably hoped he appeared to be.  Refusing to even dignify him with shared adult status.

A few seconds for the various insults to register, before LeBeau responded.  "Yeah, I ‘got something on my mind.'  Rogue."

Almost sneering, "And what does *my wife* have to do with *you*?"  Because Logan knew where Gambit's sensitive spots were, oh yes, and he was going to be hitting them good and hard.  The gloves, as Marie was fond of saying, were finally off...

"She was *my girl* before *you* ran off wit' her, and I don' give up that easy."

A snort of disdain and amusement.  "She was never ‘your girl' — she just let you take her out because half the damned school was throwing you at her, and you were too goddamn thickheaded to get the point when she tried to get rid of you." [And every damn word of it is true, Gumbo, and I've been waiting a *long* time to shove your face in it.]

From the muscle that jumped in Remy's jaw, a nerve — or several — had been struck.  "She wasn't trying *that* hard to get rid of me.  And she damned sure seemed to be enjoying herself when she was out with me."  A pause, before shifting to an ominous and insinuating tone.  "She seemed to be enjoying herself *quite a bit*..."

[Oh, so now you're trying to make me think you actually had something going with her?  Try again, bub — that one won't fly...] "If she was enjoying herself so much with you, how come she never let you past second base in almost a year of ‘dating'?"  He managed to pronounce the word so that the quotation marks were audible.

Remy's eyes flashed — another point to Logan — before he readied his next volley.  "What makes you think she and I never went that far?"

[A better try — still the wrong tactic, but a better try.] "Because she used to come sneakin' into my bedroom after the end of every one of your ‘dates.'  Still in the slinky outfits her roommates made her wear for you," he added, because every reference to Rogue being pressured to date Gambit was another blow to the Cajun's ego, "and your scent was never *under* the clothes, either.  I *know* you never got anywhere important with her."  Logan raised his bottle again, letting the other man mull over that for a bit. [With any luck, he's thinking about all those nights he spent trying to show Marie that he was the best thing to ever come along for her, and after all that heavy-duty dancing and romancing she was giving him the brushoff and climbing into bed with me...  Damned if it didn't make the whole farce almost tolerable sometimes.]

LeBeau looked almost shaken.  "You *can't* expect me to believe that — not after *every* date!"

Logan grinned.  "You don't believe me, ask her roommates.  Hell, they were helping her sneak out — they thought she was going back out to meet up with *you* after curfew..."  Gambit looked a little sick at that one, which raised an old question — had Kitty or Jubes ever let something slip to the Cajun about the late-night assignations they had assumed he was having with Rogue?  He had clearly never been blatantly confronted with the news that Marie's roommates thought she was meeting up with him late at night for hours at a time after curfew, when he had in fact already parted company with her for the evening — but possibly a few puzzling comments had been dropped at one time or another...

Making Gumbo look sick was fun in and of itself, but it wasn't enough to satisfy the Wolverine.  The beast wanted blood.  So, time for a new strike.  And, just in case Remy ever recovered enough to make another attempt at an offensive, best limit his available targets.  "Course, I never would have agreed to play along with letting Marie pretend to date you if I thought anything might ever really come of it.  I mean, what was the worst that could have happened if our cover got blown early?  Maybe Chuckie and Scooter would have pitched a fit, or maybe her parents would have yanked her back home.  So I could have followed her back to Mississippi, or maybe we would have just hit the road together.  You were just less of a pain in the ass to deal with."  An actual lie in there — a big one.  Had it been up to Logan, the game would have been up long before.  But, it was *Marie's* parents they were ducking, and *Marie's* education they were holding out to complete, and so Logan had left the decision-making up to her on this one...

Fortunately, Gambit didn't seem to have detected the falsehood.  But he wasn't reacting quite the way the Wolverine wanted, either.  It was time to up the ante.

"By the way, did either of us ever tell you how much we appreciated your little Valentine's Day present?"  A slight pause, for LeBeau to remember the teddy, a delicately cut scrap of lace and satin in a cherry red appropriate to the holiday.  "Kind of a bold gift to be givin' a girl you weren't even sharin' a bed with — especially when you told her you'd like to see her in it some time."

He gave Remy a look to check his reaction, letting the kid see his amusement.  The pale face was good, the clenching fists were better yet.  Logan refused to look at Gumbo again, not wanting to betray how much attention he was actually paying to the other man's growing tension.  He could hear LeBeau's breathing and heartbeat just fine from where he was — almost as good as expression and body language under the circumstances. [Come on, you know you want to...]

"Hell of a lot better gift than the one *I* gave her — just some chocolate or something."  Pause for effect, then the followup, "Then again, I'd just dropped a fair bit of cash taking her out ring-shopping the weekend before, and out to dinner somewhere real fancy afterwards.  So I was kind of tapped out." [That's right, bub — it was *after* she and I had set the date that you went giving her those kinky undies.  And how does *that* make you feel?]

Evidently it wasn't quite enough to get the response he was trying for.  So, to add fuel to the fire, "Almost a shame you never got to see her in it.  She looked *damned* good.  Though it doesn't look quite so pretty now..."  Thoughtfully, as though considering the matter, "Funny — you'd think Fredericks of Hollywood of all places would have made underwear that didn't tear up when you take it off with your teeth..."

That was what finally did it.  Logan heard it when Remy snapped and lunged.  He didn't bother to look around at the younger man. [Even Gumbo probably isn't dumb enough to give me this kind of a chance more than once.  It'll be a one shot deal — better make the most of it...]

It was a good hit, connecting solidly with Logan's jaw.  He rolled with it, then slowly swiveled his head around to face Remy.

Gambit actually backed up a step at the look on the other man's face.  It was a smile, and not at all a friendly one.  It also wasn't entirely Logan doing the smiling.  The Wolverine was coming to the fore, lured by the promise of impending violence, and the man was letting the beast shine through in his eyes.  It offered pain, and blood, and took great joy at the prospect.  Logan saw the alarm blossoming in the red-and-black eyes, as the warnings screaming from his hindbrain finally reached the attention of the centers of more complex thought.  Perhaps he was dimly beginning to realize that he was facing an animal that wanted nothing more at that moment than to splatter him across wood paneling and tasteful furnishings in a nightmarish Pollock, and a man holding the beast's leash that had gotten very tired indeed of keeping the monster to heel.

Tired — but still mindful of the consequences.  People would object to the casual murder of a fellow X-Man — teammembers, traumatized students, Chuckie, and most importantly Marie.  There were a few witnesses, at the other end of the room — too far to have heard the conversation, but undoubtedly about to be attracted to the scene by the outbreak of violence.  This would have to be short and oh-so-bloody-sweet.  Logan rose to his feet, in a smooth rapid movement that nonetheless seemed to Remy to take an eternity.

"Just so everybody's clear on this — *you* threw the first punch..."

The smile — if it could really be termed that — widened.

* * *

* * *

"*What the HELL did you think you were doing*?!"

[Hmmph.  Scooter's actually pacing.  He really *must* be pissed.] By contrast, Logan was in a fairly laid-back mood.  One of many benefits of violence — the ability to not only relieve stress but to directly deal with the person causing the stress in the first place.  Sometimes permanently.  Logan had been wanting to pound the shit out of Gambit for nearly a year, and it had almost been worth the wait.  Not even Cyke's irate reaction was dampening his good mood — if anything, it was improving it.  "He *started* the fight — I just finished it," he pointed out, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair contentedly.

Scott didn't argue the point, although he looked like he wanted to.  Hank, Kurt and Peter had all agreed — once they got done pulling Logan off of Remy and the questioning began — that Remy *had* been the one to escalate the "discussion" into a fistfight.  "Self-defense is one thing — putting *another teammember* into the Medlab is another.  You *teach* physical combat here, you *know* you can wipe the floor with most of us in a fight, you didn't have to prove it like *that*."

Logan gave him a measuring look.  "Guess I did, if Gumbo was dumb enough to go starting a fight with me..."

Whatever Cyclops might have come up with in response was lost, since at that moment the door to Xavier's office slammed open.

"Logan, what the HELL did you do to Remy?!"

[Uh-oh.] Scooter's reaction didn't bother him.  Chuckie didn't worry him too much, either. *Marie*, though...  "Nothing *permanent*..."

"I'm sure he'll find that very comforting once he wakes up and finds out his jaw's wired shut."  Rogue set her hands on her hips and glared at her husband.

Logan shifted a little in his chair.  "He started the fight..."  Even he knew that he sounded almost whiny.

"And what did you say to him to *make* him start it?"

[Damn.  Knew I wouldn't be able to slip it past her.]

Without waiting for a reply, she held out her hand, walking towards him.  

He briefly wondered if he'd be better off refusing, before realizing that he'd rather drop the entire truth in Marie's lap to be sifted through than to have go through the whole thing out loud in front of Cyke.  Sighing quietly, he took her hand and let her take what she wanted.  With the whole argument and fight being the current topics of discussion, the thoughts she was after were right in the forefront of his mind.

"Oh, Logan, you didn't," she murmured unhappily, ending the trickle of thought without releasing his hand.

"Didn't what?  If he did something to start the fight deliberately — " Cyke attempted to elbow his way in and regain control of the interrogation.

"Put a sock in it, Scooter!  I'm handling it!" Marie snarled.  She disliked being interrupted before new memories had a chance to settle at the best of times, and having Cyclops trying to get authoritative when she had a fresh influx of Logan was not the best of times.

Scott actually took a step back, startled at her reaction.  She turned back to Logan.  "Poor baby."  Whether she meant her husband or her would-be boyfriend was open to interpretation.  "What a mess.  At least maybe he'll finally get the point and leave me alone."  Cyclops looked confused — probably he'd been expecting Marie to help him chew Logan out, given her entrance.  The shift to sympathy had caught him off guard.

Encouraged by her softened mood, Logan asked, "He really had his jaw wired shut?"

"Mm-hmm.  You broke it in three places.  Maybe you didn't have to hit him *quite* so hard?"

"Indeed."  The Professor announced his entrance in a rather frigid tone.  "I'm sure you and Remy have your — *differences*, Logan, but hospitalizing someone due to a *disagreement* is *NOT* acceptable."

Logan turned in his chair to meet Xavier's forbidding glare, not at all quelled.  Marie was on his side — or at least not against him — and that was the most important thing.  "Oh, I don't know.  At least I didn't cut him up any..."  He smirked.

Xavier stiffened in his chair, and judging by the intake of breath Scooter was having a similar reaction behind Logan and Marie's backs.  "Logan, this is not a joke — "

"No, it's not," Logan cut in.  Despite his words, the smile remained.  "This is the guy who's been trying to get my girl — my *fiancee* — into bed for the past year, and none of *you people* — " the entire X-Crew being liberally and impartially heaped with his scorn " — have been doing a goddamn thing to help the situation.  He didn't know any better, and neither did any of you, and that's why I never called him on it."  The smile remained, but the Wolverine was beginning to show, shifting the expression from almost playful to a darker humor.  "But when we showed up back here Monday and let everyone finally know, ‘That's it, we're married,' he should have stopped.  He goddamn well should *not* have come getting into my face because he's pissed he never got to fuck *my wife*, and he's fucking well lucky that *all* I did was hit him, when what I *wanted* to do was feed him his own balls before I ripped his lungs out."  Turning in his chair to meet Scott's eyes, he added, "And don't you *dare* accuse me of a lack of restraint.  I didn't kill him, I didn't do any permanent damage, and I didn't even touch him until *he* turned it into a fight.  He'll get out of the Medlab and be just *fine*, and if he's got half a brain in his head then he'll have learned to keep his fucking distance."  The smile hadn't wavered, but enough of the Wolverine had reached the surface to bring a baleful gleam to Logan's eyes — a sort of serial-killer glee.

Scott froze, and Charles was giving Logan a wary look.  The mood in the room had shifted, as the two other men were once again sharply reminded that the Wolverine had a much more pragmatic and well-accustomed view of deadly violence than either of them.

Responding to the darker turn of the conversation and the sudden silence, Marie released Logan's hand and settled herself into his lap, hooking her knees over the arm of the chair and wrapping one arm around his shoulders.  He tucked his arms about her waist and she rubbed one of them soothingly, while resuming the conversation herself.  "I really never meant Remy to get dragged so far into this.  I only went out with him because my roommates bullied me into it, and I kept thinking I'd be able to dump him or get him to lose interest."

"Lot of luck *there*," Logan grumbled, leaning his head into Marie's shoulder.  There he'd been in such a good mood, and Chuckie and Scooter had to go making him go over the whole Gumbo thing and get all worked up again...

"Not that I had a lot of help whenever I *tried* to break up with him," Rogue added, turning to glare meaningfully at Cyclops for a moment.

"No, you guys just *had* to hook the two of them up, didn't you?" Logan snarled.  "And then come getting in my face whenever I tried to ‘interfere'..."

"Shh."  Marie shifted her hand from running along his arm to ruffling his hair.  "No one's ‘interfering' now, and no one's going to be throwing me at Remy anymore."  She caught the Professor watching the pair of them thoughtfully, and absently wondered whether he was reevaluating their suitability as a couple or merely assessing her ability to calm her husband when necessary.  Didn't matter.  They were together now, and there was nothing anyone else could do to tear them apart.

Logan grumbled a little, a sound identified by long experience as indicating that he was still cranky but in an improving mood.  "Can we go now?" he asked suddenly, raising his head.  "Or am I still being bitched at?"

Charles raised an eyebrow.  "So long as there are no further ‘incidents' of this type..."

Logan shrugged.  "He doesn't start a fight, there won't *be* a fight.  He doesn't get in my face, I won't get in his.  He leaves Marie the hell alone, no problem."

"And if he doesn't, the next time I may deck him myself," Rogue added, more for Logan's benefit than anything else.  He chuckled and tightened his grip around her waist for a minute, and she considered herself rewarded.

The Professor chose to accept that as a conditional victory.  "I'll have a word with him once he's able.  Let's hope that we've heard the last of this..."

"Fine by me," Logan muttered.

"Same here," Marie echoed.  They disentangled themselves from the chair and left, arms finding their way around waists as they walked out.

Scott came around to close the door behind them, turning to face Xavier.  "Well?"

Charles regarded him thoughtfully.  "I think that Logan has the capacity for a great deal more self-control than any of us have given him credit for — and that we should be deeply grateful that he has."

Scott shivered, remembering that smile.

* * *


HALTED INDEFINITELY...

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