* * *
"I know what's good for you...you can touch me if you want
I know you're dying to...you can touch me if you want
I know what's good for you...you can touch me if you want
But you can't stop"
"Queer," by Garbage
* * *
Things didn't always go so well as that first kiss, of course. Logan made a point of surprising her on a semi-regular basis, wanting her to learn to deal with unexpected contact as well as possible. When he came up behind her and touched her without warning, there would be a bit of a pull before she caught herself and stopped it, and sometimes she couldn't quite prevent a trace of absorption even when she was prepared. But they were both determined, and encouraged by her success so far, and they kept at it.
Sometimes when she was in his room studying, sitting at the desk or on his bed, he would quietly come up beside her and lay a hand on the back of her neck. Sitting on the bed was especially interesting, since he had room to sit beside her and rest his fingers against her face or take her hand into his, just maintaining a light contact while she studied, trying to get her accustomed to controlling her power without conscious thought. He might gently remove one of her gloves, sliding a finger or two into the top and slowly peeling it down her arm and off.
That last was perilously similar to foreplay, and made it very difficult to concentrate on what she was supposedly studying but that was all right with her, since she wasn't exactly having a hard time keeping up with her classes, and there were some very interesting things that could be done when she put her books and homework aside. She didn't even feel particularly guilty, since the students *were* supposed to be learning to control their powers, and what she had been doing with Logan was doing more for her along those lines than the rest of the school combined had been able to do...
She still didn't trust her newfound control enough to share the news with her friends and teachers, though let alone finally get rid of the gloves and scarves. With Logan was one thing between his healing factor and the strong presence already in her head, a little more absorption was no big thing. But that didn't mean that an unexpected brush against a different person couldn't still result in a stay in the Medlab for them and an added voice in the eternal committee meeting within her skull.
In truth, she had gotten so used to the extra layers that the idea of walking around without gloves at Xavier's *or* outside the school grounds felt uncomfortably like the idea of wandering about in public in her underwear. So for the moment, the practice sessions with Logan remained their little secret.
Which she learned to be thankful for, the next time her parents called.
* * *
"If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked
something."
Murphy's Eighth Law
* * *
As Xavier had told Logan during his initial tour of the school, most of the students were runaways. There were a number of reasons for this. Many of the young mutants, like Marie, had found themselves the target of hostile attention from neighbors and former friends as soon as their powers manifested. Others, unfortunately, came under attack from their own families, or had even been thrown out.
Xavier had seen the wide range of backgrounds his budding mutants came from, and understood that in some cases a clean break was the best for all concerned. But if at all possible, he encouraged reconciliation with their families once they had settled in at the school. For the parents who had tried to support their children despite public disapproval, the news that their children were alive and well in a safe haven came as nothing short of heavensent. Even when families had reacted unfavorably to the discovery of their offspring's mutations, an abrupt and mysterious absence occasionally made the heart grow fonder. If nothing else, it made it easier for the family to maintain the pretense of normalcy if the absent child was "away at a boarding school for gifted students," which made them more tolerable in their absence. A very few lucky students (including Kitty) had never run away at all, but had instead been discovered and contacted by Xavier regarding enrollment in the school. So mail, phone calls and even holiday visits home were by no means unknown for many of the students.
Shortly after Marie's arrival, Xavier and the other adult X-Men had begun subtly encouraging her to consider phoning or writing to her family, informing them of her whereabouts or at least sounding them out regarding a reconciliation. The whole idea gave her a sinking feeling, and fear of having some well-meaning person tracking her family down and contacting them on her behalf kept her from giving her real name to anyone else long after she had settled into her place at the Academy.
Until Logan returned, and settled into his own somewhat unique position in the school. Chuckie being the sharp character that he was, the idea of enlisting Logan to the cause of ferreting out Marie's past had occurred to him before very many weeks had passed.
Surprisingly for such a deeply private individual, the idea captured Logan's support with very little consideration. Or perhaps not so surprisingly after all. As he noted to Marie late one Friday night (the resident pariah and the Designated Curfew Enforcer for the weekend bonding in front of Letterman), having no living relatives that he knew of had made him highly sensitive to the idea of having a family. Appreciative, was the word. In his case, anyone who may have cared about his absence when Whoever-the-hell-they-were grabbed him and wiped his memory fifteen or more years ago had no doubt given him up for dead by now assuming they were still themselves among the living. His ties were severed, for better or for worse.
But Marie had a living family parents, a younger brother, other relatives and she hadn't been gone from home much more than a year. Chances were she was missed, whether she expected to be or not. And it was a very sad thing to be alone in the world. Sad enough to maybe be worth risking a phone call to prevent.
Not that he was suggesting she give them an address to come find her, or even a number to return the call to if things didn't go well. Just a few minutes to sound them out, let them know she was all right, and see how they reacted...
He didn't ask questions about her home life before or after her gift surfaced, or whether her parents had reacted that badly to learning of her mutation. He didn't even ask her last name. He didn't nag, or try to pressure her into doing what he thought she should do. He simply gave her his honest opinion on the importance of families, and his risk/benefit assessment of a simple phone call to her parents. Then he let the matter drop and left her alone to think about it.
A few days after Logan gave his thoughts on the subject, she came up to his room after dinner. Standing awkwardly just within the doorway, examining her gloves as though they were a constant source of interest and worry, she asked him if he had any ideas as to what she should say if she called up her parents after so many months with no word. They kicked some ideas around for a while, he being a proponent of the baldest possible, "Hi Mom, I'm okay and in a school for mutants. Miss you!" while she wanted a bit less of the bare-bones approach.
After his offers to talk to her parents first himself, or to come down to the lobby phone with her for what essentially consisted of moral support, she asked him to come downstairs with her to stand lookout in case of eavesdroppers or interruptions. So he was too far from the phone to overhear Marie clearly, let alone catch her parents' side of the conversation. He noticed that she cried at one point, and spent a few minutes silently arguing with himself over whether or not to intervene but she seemed relieved when she eventually hung up, and she thanked him on the way back up to her room. And after that, Rogue became one of the students who received occasional family phone calls in the evenings.
Logan allowed himself to feel mildly smug about his role in the events. A month or so after the initial call, her parents actually visited the school for a weekend. Logan didn't learn this until Monday morning, however, since Xavier had come to him Friday night with the name, location and appearance (the latter imparted telepathically) of a young mutant in Charleston who absolutely *had* to be picked up that very weekend. Accepting the assignment with his usual appreciation of a job that got him out of the state for a few days, he was chagrined afterwards to learn that he'd missed a chance to meet Marie's parents.
This lasted until Marie acerbically asked him how he expected her parents to react to, "And this is my friend Logan! When I met him, he had just got done pounding the crap out of a bunch of drunken rednecks in a bar in northern Alberta, and the next morning when he got thrown out of the bar for being a vicious mutant and I stowed away in his trailer, he refrained from leaving a teenaged girl standing by the side of the road in the snow in the middle of nowhere. Oh, and he likes motorcycles, hockey, drinking and violence!"
He got the point. And he didn't have to be lured away from the X-Mansion on her parents' occasional future visits he made a point of clearing out himself. So Marie's parents had certainly heard of her good friend Logan, but somehow they just never got a chance to meet him...
Which was how matters stood, when Marie's parents called again with the standard questions...
* * *
"bend around the wind silently blown about again i'm treading so soft
and lightly compromising my will i am"
"rose," by A Perfect Circle
* * *
"How are you, baby?" This from her mother.
"Those other... you know, *mutants*... treating you all right?" And there was Dad, on the other extension.
"You haven't learned how to control it yet, have you, baby?"
"Because you know we'd bring you home in a *second*, if we only could..."
"Just as soon as it's safe honey, you let us know. Don't even wait for the end of the semester..."
"We miss you, baby."
Because somehow, when Xavier was giving the Gordons the grand tour of the school and giving his usual speech about a safe environment for the young mutants to learn to control their powers in loving and accepting surroundings for their eventual graduation as useful and productive members of society well, her parents heard the phrase "control their powers" and more or less stopped listening. That was the part that mattered to them.
Because compared to some of the other kids they were seeing, their little Marie was just so *normal*. Oh, sure, there were those shocking white streaks Marie's mother had almost cried the first time she saw her daughter again, sensing the world of hard experience and lost innocence that the bleached hair signified but hair could be dyed. If she could just learn to turn her unwelcome gift *off*
Then she'd be normal again. And then they could take their little girl home, and everything could go back to the way it was supposed to be...
Listening to her parents now, for the first time since she had begun practicing her control with Logan, some unconsidered consequences of her new lessoning began to occur to her.
Like having to pack up and return to Mississippi in mid-term. Like having to say goodbye to her new best friends and roommates. Like having to put up with the same rejection from her neighbors, classmates and former friends that had driven her from home in the first place.
Like having to say goodbye to Logan.
Tangling her fingers anxiously in the phone cord, she asked, "Momma, did you ever think maybe I could even if I learned to control my my mutation " [Don't forget, if' and not when,' and don't call it a gift' or a power'!] "Maybe I should just stay here until I graduate high school? I mean, it's with my friends, and I'd *still* be a mutant, and "
"Don't be ridiculous, honey! You belong right here with your family!"
Marie swallowed nervously. [Easy does it too much arguing and they may want to know why I'm suddenly so interested in what happens if I learn to control my power...] "Are you sure? Everyone would remember what happened with David and they might not care that I could keep from doing it..."
"Baby, if we have to, we'll move. To a new town, somewhere they won't know you." The declaration was flat, a statement of fact.
Marie blinked back tears. Her parents meant every word and they loved her, they did, and they *meant* well, but...
Well, they were missing parts of the big picture. Because they wanted things to go back to the way they *should* have been, before her would-be boyfriend wound up in a coma and she wound up climbing out her bedroom window in the dead of night to run as far north as she could get before her money ran out. But that just couldn't happen time wouldn't turn back for wishing.
She wasn't the same person she'd been before she kissed David or even before Magneto's machine, or meeting Logan and trying to return to the little girl she'd been before all the insanity was something akin to trying to stuff a chick back into its broken eggshell. It was time to be thinking about stretching wings, not returning to the egg and she sensed that she'd be able to fly a lot farther starting from Xavier's than from her narrow-minded little Mississippi high school...
[They're gonna believe what they want to believe, because they don't want to admit that their little girl isn't ever going to have the life they planned for her,] Subliminal Logan whispered to her. [You can come close school, friends, love, even college and a career but because you've got that little something different, it's never gonna be quite the way they'd expected it. But that doesn't mean it can't be good or that they can't learn to accept it one day,] he added. [Just not yet...]
She bowed her head in silent acceptance. [As long as they insist on trying to make me pass for human, I can't risk telling them when that's possible.] As she changed the subject, moved on to inanities, gossip, her grades and her latest trip to the mall, Inner Logan noted something else. [I'm having a real hard time picturing Wheels deliberately lying to your parents the next time they ask how you're doing with your gift and I *damned* sure can't see Cyke keeping this a secret from them with the way they keep asking!]
Her eyes widened at the realization. [If I can't tell my parents or anyone who would tell my parents or anyone who might tell someone who *might* let it slip to the wrong people...] The corner of her mouth settled into a wry quirk. [Unless something changes, looks like we're gonna be sneaking around for a *long* time...]
* * *
"Magic from the hand
We're makin'
(Weird science)
Things I've never seen before
Behind bolted doors
Talent and imagination
(Weird science)
Not what teacher said to do
Makin' dreams come true
Living tissue, warm flesh"
"Weird Science," by Oingo Boingo
* * *
One night a month or two past their first kiss, Marie was leaning back against his pillow with her copy of _Ethan Frome,_ when Logan settled himself next to her. She gave him a sidelong glance from the corner of her eye but pretended to remain absorbed in her book. (In reality, every nerve ending had quivered into alert as soon as he sat on the bed.) He tucked a pair of fingers into the top of her left glove and slowly pulled it down, letting the backs of his fingers caress her skin all the way. At her wrist, he took the bunched-up fabric in his left hand and pulled it off completely, letting his right hand caress her wrist en route to her now-naked hand. Lacing his fingers through hers, he raised her hand to his mouth and gave it a brief kiss on the back, before pressing it against his cheek for a few breaths.
Taking her hand from his face, he disentangled his fingers from hers and passed her hand to his left one, freeing his right arm to put around her shoulders. She contentedly leaned into him, laying her head on his shoulder briefly before pretending to return her attention to her book. He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb, enjoying the scent and feel of the girl in his arm while giving her a bit more time to stop thinking about her control.
When she turned a page presumably indicating that she was successfully "tuning him out" enough to continue reading he turned his head and exhaled softly against her ear. She froze at the unexpected almost-caress, and he felt a brief tingle in the hand still holding hers. After her initial startlement, she quickly regained control, and he leaned his head closer and did it again. She kept perfectly still, only her eyes moving to glance at him without turning her head, and he caught the interest that had entered her scent.
A moment later, and he moved in even closer, slowly running his tongue up from her earlobe along the outer rim of her ear. He felt her shudder slightly, and tightened his arm around her shoulders. Planting a soft kiss in the hollow beneath her earlobe, he let go of her hand and reached for her face, stroking up along her cheek and turning her head to face him.
She met his gaze wonderingly, eyes showing that endearingly paradoxical mix of youthful innocence oddly coupled to world-weary experience. He stroked his thumb along her cheek, remaining lost in her regard for a minute before bringing her mouth close to his. She closed her eyes, dropping her now-forgotten book to the bed as she raised a hand to his shoulder. Logan ran his hand back into her hair, holding her close as he sucked playfully at her lower lip. She sighed and pressed herself closer to him, parting her lips invitingly. He took the hint and brushed his tonguetip along hers.
Sliding his hand down the back of her neck to her shoulder, her own arm was nudged downward by his elbow and her hand trailed from his shoulder down along his side. Somehow he found himself pressing her back down against the pillow, one knee between her thighs. She moaned low in her throat and gripped his thigh tightly between her own, pulling him closer with both arms. He took his lips from hers and began leaving a trail of kisses down her throat down, down, to the hollow at the base, and further down, until he was nuzzling between her breasts. She tangled her hand in his hair, silently assuring him that she approved.
Retracing his path upward with his lips, he slid his hand down her side, and then let it drift up to claim her right breast. She made a little noise compounded of surprise and eagerness, pressing herself into his palm. He rubbed her nipple with his thumb, feeling it harden beneath her shirt and underthings, and reached her lips again. She ran her tongue enthusiastically along his lower lip, before nipping him lightly. Nudging his knee upward between her legs, he felt her press against his upper thigh, before beginning to rub herself firmly against it.
Finding this to be a laudable impulse, he rolled to his back, then grabbed her hips and pulled her over on top of him. There was a moment of startled adjustment on her part before she got herself settled with her knees to either side of him, and then he shifted her so that she was pressed suitably against his growing erection. "You just rub all you want to right there, darlin'," he murmured in her ear, and after a pause to get used to the idea she did.
Letting her settle into a comfortable back-and-forth rhythm and beginning to move with her, he ran his hands from her hips up to her breasts. "Mmmm," she breathed, pressing a bit more firmly against him.
He made a noise somewhere in the middle ground between a moan and a growl, pulling her back down for another kiss. When she lifted her lips from his to catch her breath, he reached down to the hem of her shirt and slid his hands up under it, working his way up to her breasts when he felt an unpleasant tingle. "Marie," he breathed softly, warningly.
"Mmm?" she moaned.
"You're startin' to lose it, baby." She stopped moving and after a moment the faint pull disappeared. He began to move his hands over his skin again, finding her satiny bra and beginning to stroke her through it. She sighed happily and began rocking again. He was debating the merits of removing her bra when the pull began again. "Ma-*rie*..." he complained softly, pulling his hands and forearms away from her skin while leaving them within her shirt.
She growled in frustration (which he *still* thought was absolutely adorable) and after a second he cautiously pressed his hands to her skin again. The tingle was gone and they resumed where they had left off but as he reached behind her to undo the clasp of her bra, it returned.
He pulled his hands abruptly out of her shirt, and she moaned in protest. "I did it *again*?"
"It's all right, Marie, you just keep getting distracted. You're still new at it you'll get good at it soon enough." He managed to keep his voice soothing, though at the moment what he wanted most was to be able to start clawing her clothes off and just *have* her, right then and there.
Sighing in frustration, she started to roll off of him, but he caught her. "Wait, wait a second. Just because we need to stop touching right now doesn't mean we have to stop *touching*." Making sure she was following his meaning, he put his hands to her hips and began rocking her pelvis against his again.
She got the idea quickly enough and he resumed running his hands over her body, keeping them on the outside of her shirt this time. Which was all very well and good, especially when she began moaning and rubbing herself against him *hard* but he was desperately wishing he could do something to up the ante. If they kept this up for too long, sooner or later somebody might come looking for one of them, and he *really* didn't want to stop this time without bringing matters to a satisfactory conclusion.
"Marie mmm :GrrroOOOHHrrr: do you trust me?"
"Mmm?"
"Here roll over." Tipping her off of him, he reached for the fly of her jeans. She stared up at him, nervousness and desire chasing themselves across her face, as he unzipped them and slipped a pair of fingers inside.
The right spot was incredibly easy to find, even through her panties hot and swollen, and when he pressed his fingertips against it Marie gasped and arched herself against him, eyes rolling shut. He started rubbing firmly, feeling her opening her thighs as far as she could get them and clinging to his shoulders. When she began to buck her hips convulsively, he pressed her face into his shoulder, muffling her cry when she came.
Giving her a few more strokes, he withdrew his hand, carefully placing it on her hip lest he do something excessively Wolverinish like start sniffing or even licking his fingers. (In lieu of being able to actually put his face in her lap, of course. He thought it was a bit early in the game to be trying something that unabashedly earthy with her yet.) While she came back to herself, he concentrated on not panting too hard and trying to ignore the painful tightness of his jeans.
"Oh, Logan. That was..." Words failing her, she pressed herself against him contentedly, and then couldn't help but notice what he hadn't been mentioning. "And you didn't..."
"It's all right," he told her. "You don't have to worry about it." [I'll just take a nice cold shower after you leave or better yet, an even nicer long hot soapy one...]
"Here, let me..."
"You don't have to...," he said while rolling to his back to allow her better access. [You don't *have* to, I don't *expect* you to, but Lord knows I'd love it if you would, darlin'!] "You've never done this before," he felt compelled to add, while helping her undo his belt. Truth was, knowing how inexperienced she was made *him* all kinds of nervous there were all sorts of games he was used to playing in bed, but he was terrified of taking her too far too fast and scaring her.
"I've got the memories of three different men inside my head. I may not have ever *done* this before, but I sure as hell remember how it's done," she noted acerbically while unzipping his fly.
"You're gonna have fun trying to explain the stains on your glove," he warned.
She looked at the glove still on her right hand, and asked him dubiously, "Would you trust me to do this with bare hands?"
He reached up, touching his hand to her cheek and pulling her down into a kiss. Back in control of herself now, there was no pull. "Yes," he said simply.
He lifted his hips to help her slide his jeans partway down his legs, and his black briefs after them. He was half-expecting her to pause and inspect the territory thus revealed, but then again with so much of him in her head she probably knew what he looked like naked as well as *he* did.
Starting with her hands against his belly one still nervously gloved, despite his suggestion she playfully teased her fingers through the hair leading down to the Main Attraction. He didn't try to halt the small moan that escaped his lips when she wrapped both hands around his penis, lacing her fingers together around it and beginning to rub firmly. Vaguely remembering that they didn't want to be heard, he flung one arm across his face while wrapping the other around her waist. When she shifted techniques and began experimenting with a sort of alternating hand-over- hand motion, he growled softly at the sensation of alternating warm bare skin and cool polyester satin. She sped up a bit, and he couldn't stop himself from beginning to move his hips to the rhythm set by her fingers.
Marie listened happily to the random series of growls and muffled whimpers her lover was making. A year ago she would have considered a scene like this to be impossible fantasy the only person willing to touch her at all, even through the safe barriers of clothing, seemingly considered her too young to be interesting.
It was impossible to mistake his interest now.
The fact that she was now touching him bare-skin-to-skin only added to the surreality of the moment.
[Surreal can be a *good* thing,] she thought to herself as Logan tensed beside her, a sound midway between cry and growl vibrating low in his throat. [As long as this isn't a dream I have to wake up from one day...]
Stretching herself out alongside him, she thoughtfully dried her bare fingers with the already-damp glove on her other hand. Catching his breath, Logan opened his eyes and caught her at it. "Sorry about the glove, baby."
"Nah, it's okay. I'll let it dry and see if I can clean it then."
"If it doesn't come clean I'll buy you a new pair." Logan pulled his shorts and jeans back up, rezipping his fly but ignoring his belt for the moment.
"Or I can just leave these here for *next* time...," she suggested wickedly.
Logan flashed her a half-grin at the promise inherent in "next time." "Remind me to borrow some Saran Wrap from the kitchen and I'll show you something even more fun than *this* was..."
* * *
"From what I hear, [Logan] ain't playin' with a full team in the cabeza, you catch my drift?"
Angelo Espinosa, WOLVERINE #94, by Larry Hama
* * *
[Okay, let's review. How the hell did I wind up standing in an alleyway in LA listening to the sound of my supposed pickup running like hell for the next county?]
Logan considered the matter carefully as he tracked the Xavier Academy's would-be newest student. Angelo Espinosa had considerately run upwind of the Wolverine, meaning that he didn't have to stay within sight to keep from losing the kid. Let him get out of sight and out of normal earshot, think he'd lost Logan, and relax a little...
He found the kid crouching beside a dumpster, keeping his head down and trying to pass himself off as a generic vagrant. Getting an accurate fix on his position from the breath sounds around the corner, and a positive ID from the scent, he knew exactly where Angelo was before he came around the side of the dumpster, abruptly positioning himself in the way of the most direct escape route. "There you are. Finished running yet?"
Angelo jumped to his feet, but quickly realized that flight wasn't an option unless he could get past Logan somehow. "What the fuck do you want with me, man?"
"I just want to talk to you for a minute."
An unfriendly stance, arms crossed. "Talk."
Logan sighed. "Look, have you really thought about what you're going to do with yourself? No home, no family you can call, no future is this what you *want*?" Hearing himself giving this particular sales pitch always amused Logan no end.
Angelo was blissfully unconscious of the irony inherent in the Wolverine taking a stand for family values. Narrowing his eyes in suspicion, he demanded, "Who the hell are you? A traveling guidance counselor? Someone from one of those youth homes?" With a derisive sniff, "You sure as hell don't look like no social worker."
Logan half-smiled at the statement of the blatantly obvious. "Something like that," he agreed. [I go playing the mutant card now, I gotta show him I'm one too and he's scared enough already without me popping the claws or showing off the healing factor.]
"*Sure* you are." The kid had I-don't-believe-a-fucking-word-you're-saying' written all over his face. It was competing for room with exhaustion, savage cynicism, and hidden beneath the rest bone-deep despair.
It was that last that Logan couldn't help responding to. The kid was making it damn hard to help him but sometimes being a malignant little shit was all you had left.
No one should bottom out that young.
Not that Angelo Espinosa looked young far from it. And the rapid maturity forced by a life on the streets was only part of it. The other part was his own unique mutation.
Angelo had skin. Too much of it. Even now, with him exerting as much untrained control as he could muster, his face was slack, gray and wrinkled. It wasn't a pretty effect and it didn't make it at all easy for him to pass himself off as human.
Which was why he needed to get out of LA and over to Xavier's. The fun part would be convincing him of that.
"I work at a school. It's for runaways. There's a place for you there if you want it." Not the most enticingly-phrased of proposals, but just to see which way the kid jumped...
"Uh-*huh*. Why me? You go to all this effort chasing down any old kid you run across?"
Logan shifted his weight, tried to appear a little less combat-ready. "Most of them don't run that hard."
"Ohh-*kay.* Some guy comes up asking kids to get into his car and let him take them somewhere, and they just go right along. No trouble. No one gets suspicious."
Logan shifted again, preparing to edge into dangerous territory. "Most of them seem to trust their own mutations to protect them." At Angelo's wide-eyed look, he added, "It's a special school."
The kid was not reassured at all. "A school for mutants? And you're trying to take me there?" Warily trying to edge to one side without being too overt about it.
"Are you trying to claim you're not a mutant?"
Which was of course when Angelo bolted. Reflexes taking over, Logan grabbed him and slammed him back into the wall. A little too hard, perhaps, as the back of his skull cracked against the brickwork behind him. When Logan released his grip, the kid slid down the wall and collapsed in a heap on the concrete.
[Oops.]
Guilt fluttering unhappily in the pit of his stomach, Logan checked the boy's pulse. Strong enough. Pulling out his lighter, he pulled up first one of Angelo's eyelids, then the other, to be sure they reacted to the illumination cast by the flame.
Satisfied that he hadn't manhandled his newest charge *too* excessively, he slung the kid over one shoulder and headed for the car. The darkness and the late hour worked in his favor, as he managed to keep from being spotted on the way to the SUV at least, by anyone who might have been willing to talk to the police. Dumping Angelo into the front passenger's seat, he buckled him in and then climbed in at the driver's side. Good thing he merely looked asleep Logan didn't like the idea of getting pulled over and trying to explain his unconscious traveling companion...
* * *
"stop the car!
I wanna get out
you're so pretty you're so pretty
I don't wanna go on this joyride Lorraine
stop the car!
just let me out at the next 7-11"
"Lorraine's Car," by Cake Like
* * *
Luck was with him the kid didn't regain consciousness until they were well on their way, and already exiting the city. He heard Angelo's breathing change, and realized the kid was awake well before he actually opened his eyes and asked, "Where the fuck are you taking me?"
"I told you. A school for mutants."
"Where the fuck is it out in the middle of the fucking desert?"
"New York. Westchester."
"YOU'RE DRIVING ME ACROSS THE FUCKING *COUNTRY* TO GET TO THIS LAMEASS *SCHOOL*!?!"
"Not *that* lameass a school but I can't make promises about some of the teachers. And we're driving because I hate flying."
"Why?"
"I've got a bitch of a time getting past the airport metal detectors." Little joke there but judging by the increase in the fear scent coming from the other seat, Angelo didn't think it was that funny. Logan sighed. [Need to defuse this...] "Sorry about knocking you out back there. Didn't mean to slam you against the wall that hard."
He gave the kid a quick glance, but he didn't seem to be responding well to the apology. Logan sifted through the possibilities for a new topic but drew a blank small talk just wasn't one of his skills. Might as well keep quiet until something suggested itself.
Which was why Angelo was the one to break the silence. "You say you work for a school?" The unspoken undertone being, Like you think I'm actually gonna believe *that*!'
Logan gave him another sidelong look. "Yes."
"Some teacher." Angelo felt the back of his head gingerly in silent accusation.
"I didn't say I was a teacher. I said I worked for a school."
A snort of disbelief. "Doing what?"
A shrug. "This and that." A pause to think about what he *really* did, and what he could actually safely say to this kid right here and now. "Keeping kids in after curfew. Picking people up sometimes," with a glance over to the passenger's seat. Reluctantly, "And they made me start giving self-defense lessons."
Another snort. "Thought you said you weren't a teacher."
"I'm not. That's why they can do without me for a few days to go get somebody."
"So you've got a lot of practice in doing this?" Judging by the way Angelo edged closer to the door, he didn't find the thought at all reassuring.
"What, picking kids up off the street and bringing them to the school? I've done it a *few* times, not *that* many."
"And the others all trusted you, came along when you said to?"
Logan frowned. "Pretty much." Now that the kid brought it up, he had to admit that it *was* a bit strange for traumatized runaways to willingly get into a car with a strange and dangerous- looking man just because he claimed to be taking them someplace good. "Guess they either trusted their mutations, or were really desperate...," he muttered thoughtfully. He now realized that it was actually a matter deserving of more consideration than he'd given it in the past.
The conversation halted at that point for an indeterminate period measured by the passing miles of the road, the night and desert surrounding them with silence.
Noticing the way Logan seemed to be paying an unusual amount of attention to the roadsides, Angelo asked, "What are you looking for, man?"
"Somewhere out of the way to stop for the night.
The kid undid his seatbelt and opened the door so fast that only the Wolverine's reflexes could have grabbed his arm before he hit the road. "What the hell is wrong with *that*?" Logan asked, peeved at the kid's reaction.
"Perdoname, the guy who hit me in the head, dumped me in his car and drove me out into the desert starts talking about pulling over someplace out of the way, and I'm *not* supposed to get upset?"
"I was talking about a motel, dammit!" A pause, while Logan slowed but did not yet stop the SUV. "Close the door." Reluctantly, Angelo complied. "Now, I was *gonna* get us two separate rooms but am I going to be able to trust you not to sneak out in the middle of the night?"
The kid spread his hands, projecting innocence. "Where would I go? We're in the middle of *nowhere*, man!"
"That didn't seem to be stopping you any a minute ago."
Angelo looked injured. "So I panicked. I won't leave. I *promise*."
Logan gave him a good hard look, but in the end decided that a display of trust might calm the kid down. When they found a seedy little highway motel an hour later, Logan got two rooms.
And then he settled by the wall separating their adjoining rooms, just a pace from the door, and waited.
It wasn't ten minutes later that he clearly heard the stealthy footsteps on the other side of the wall, followed by the sound of the other room's door being oh-so-slowly-and-carefully opened.
Logan was already waiting outside the door when it finally opened wide enough for a slender form to tiptoe through. "So much for your promise."
"Ah, *man*! Uh, I was just was looking for a drinks machine!"
"There aren't any. If you're thirsty right now, you're stuck with tap water."
"Uh... I could go check anyway...," he offered with a hopeful, ingratiating, and completely insincere smile.
"Nope. Back inside."
Angelo reluctantly re-entered the room, then turned in shock as Logan followed him in. "Uh aren't you going back to your room?"
"Nope."
"What? Why not? You got me. I'm right here. I promise to behave myself..."
"Yeah, like you promised not to leave before? I'm stayin' right here tonight." Logan wasn't sure enough of his ability to wake at the sound of a stealthy escape a room away to risk it but in the same room, no problem...
"No way, man!"
"Afraid so."
The falsely ingratiating air wore away to reveal some of the tension beneath. "What the fuck are you, my watchdog? Don't I get any privacy here?"
"Be grateful there are two beds in these rooms."
"Chinga tu madre, pendejo!" (Fuck your mother, asshole!)
Logan sighed. "Unless you can tell me who she is and where to find her, that ain't an option. Try again."
Silence.
* * *
"Get in the car
I can make an honest man of you
I can make you clean if you want me to
I can make you go very far
Just take the car
Get in the car
Car
Get in the car
Take the car
To the mountains
Take the car
Take the car
Take the car"
"Driving Lesson," by Garbage
* * *
The eventful purchase of a bag and some clothes and things for the kid was something best never referred to again. Logan could only be thankful for the foresight that led him into saving the shopping trip for 3 am in a 24-hour Wal-Mart in Nevada. (As he knew from past experience, graveyard shift Wal-Mart employees will ignore *anything*, up to and including leather-clad shoppers handcuffed to one another.)
It was with a sigh of genuine relief that Logan turned the car into the driveway on Greymalkin Lane. After a week of sleeping with one ear tuned to the sound of a motel room's door being stealthily opened, of driving across the continent with a nakedly hostile and frightened passenger, and of feeling uncomfortably like a warden transporting a prisoner, he was more than ready to turn the kid loose. Let Xavier and his merry band of X-Men cope with Angelo he just wanted to unwind with some beer and his girl...
Speaking of whom, their late-afternoon arrival allowed an impromptu welcoming committee to greet the returning teammember and new arrival. Aside from the predictable presences of Jean and Cyke, Marie arrived in the garage shortly after the SUV did, with Jubilee and Kitty in tow. Or rather, with Jubilee the ever-enthusiastic in the lead, while the shyer Kitty and Rogue trailed a bit behind, all with welcoming smiles.
Logan sensed the dark cloud in the passenger's seat lifting, and turned to see Angelo's face alight with astonishment. Having reluctantly abandoned the theory that Logan was some pervo with a sick fetish for tormenting mutant juveniles only after several unmolested nights had passed, the teenager had moved on to the belief that he had been abducted for some secret government experiment. More than anything else, it seemed to be the sight of the obviously happy, healthy and untortured young women that convinced him that Logan had been on the up-and-up.
Cautiously climbing out of the car, Angelo was immediately surrounded. Had he not been still wound up from the tension-filled week, Logan might have almost smiled. Scooter was too much of a damn boy scout to be anything nefarious, and Jean was projecting elegant maternal educating presence' or something along those lines. And if the kid had been in any doubt that he was surrounded by mutants, Jubilee's playful miniature fireworks display as she introduced herself and Kitty's retrieval of Angelo's bag through a closed car door quickly verified matters.
Climbing out of his own side of the SUV, Logan retrieved his own bag. He was going to the kitchen for some beer and he was going up to his room. He was going to park himself in front of the TV with Marie if at all possible and he was going to leave all the rest of the school to handle its own damn business without him for the rest of the day...
Having made her introduction to Angelo, Marie slipped away from the group and followed Logan out. He heard her approaching and paused just inside the door, waiting for her to catch up. "Long trip?" she asked sympathetically.
"Especially with him convinced I was either a pervert or a government agent."
"*Really*?"
"I don't think he stopped believing he was doomed until he saw you girls coming to " He broke off as a thought that had been flickering around in the back of his mind connected with another, an idea flickering to life with almost electrical urgency. Halting in midstep as he examined his proposition from multiple sides, he could find no flaw in the construction. "Baby, could you meet me in my room later on? I need to go talk to Chuckie about something but if this works out, I really *will* have something to tell you..."
He saw her face light up with interest and curiosity, but only dimly, absorbed as he was in the contemplation of the logical conclusion that he could hardly credit. He felt the tug as Marie pulled his bag from his shoulder, absently noting and dismissing her murmur about taking it to his room for him.
Parting ways at the lobby, Marie headed up to his room to wait while he found his way to Xavier's office. He caught the professor on his way out no doubt planning to come greet the new student. "Ah, Logan! Back again how did your meeting with young Mr. Espinosa go?"
"Terrible. He wouldn't come with me till I hit him over the head and tossed him in the car. Can we talk for a minute?"
Xavier's face darkened at Logan's blunt rendering of almost-fact as he reversed back into his office. He had enough experience with these little talks with Logan not to bother offering him a seat the Wolverine had a tendency to pace like a caged animal. If he had spent as much time in Xavier's office as Jean or Scott did, there would no doubt have been a path worn into the carpet by now. "Surely you can't be serious?"
Logan halted and wheeled to face the Professor. "Can't you tell what I'm thinking about?"
Xavier regarded him gravely. "Between the alterations done to your memory and your more feral personality traits, your mind is exceptionally difficult to read. Almost as difficult as Rogue's."
[Whoa, now *that's* interesting!] "What's the deal with Rogue's mind?"
"She has too many conflicting personalities crowding for space. They provide too much background noise for her own thoughts to be clearly read."
[Now *that* is damned handy to know!] "Whaddaya know, schizophrenia has its uses..."
Charles gave him a Don't joke about the afflicted' look. "You had something you wished to discuss?"
[Oh, yeah, my idea!] "The kid didn't want to come with me. Had a real problem with running off with some strange old guy he didn't know. Was afraid I was some pervert or something. Haven't you guys ever run across this problem before?"
The Professor looked saddened. "On occasion. We used to make a point of sending Scott out with either Jean or Ororo to contact one of our prospective students but in recent years we've had too many students here and too few adults to be able to spare two teachers at once."
"Now see, that's it, that's it *exactly*! You can't spare any teachers, and I don't really have that much to teach, so I get sent out alone and I look like a damn child molester. Angelo wasn't really keen on coming here up until he saw Jubilee and Kitty and Rogue waiting there to meet him, so next time why don't I take one of *them* with me?"
"What?" Xavier sat up a bit straighter in his chair (if that were possible). Logan was encouraged by his expression, astonished but not forbidding.
"Jubilee or Kitty or Rogue maybe even a couple of them. Next time I go running off to Tulsa or Fargo or somewhere to talk some kid into coming here, have one of them along so I look more legit and less like a serial killer." [Ohpleaseohplease...] Logan concentrated on not looking too eager at the prospect.
To his utter delight, Xavier didn't immediately pitch a fit at the prospect of a male "teacher" of questionable morals running off with one or more underaged female students on unsupervised overnight trips. "Hmm... If it were for *short* trips and if they were able to keep up with their assignments..."
Logan shrugged. "Not a lot to do in a car for all day might as well study..."
"Perhaps on a *trial* basis..." Xavier rubbed his jaw, frowning thoughtfully.
"Next time you send me out?" Logan thought very, very hard about a week in a car with an upset mutant teenager because "difficult to read" wasn't the same as "impossible to read," and he'd much rather have the Professor pick up little flickers of Driving With Angelo than images of the sweetly nasty things he and Marie could find themselves doing in a motel room by themselves with no friends and fellow mutants to gossip at noises or come knocking on the door at inopportune times...
"Perhaps..."
Logan nodded and let himself out. He'd said his piece time to let Chuckie think about it. For now, *he* was going to be passing his idea on to Marie, so they could put their heads together and figure out reasonable excuses for taking Rogue out on these little pickups more often than either of her roommates...
* * *
HALTED INDEFINITELY...