* * *
"We KNOW how mean and cruel and nasty and despicable and malicious and EVIL she used to be when she was doing the hangs over at the
HELLFIRE CLUB, but she's done all right by US, hasn't she?"
— Jubilee, on Emma Frost, GENERATION X #46, by Larry Hama
* * *
The hour was carefully chosen — late enough so that very few should be awake to potentially notice the figure sneaking through the darkened campus, yet still early enough to allow a fair distance to be covered before dawn. By the time Marie’s absence would be discovered the next morning — hopefully not until she failed to appear at her first class — she and Logan would be out of the state.
After her call to Logan, Marie headed for her room and packed. Not all of her things, nor even very many of them — a back pack for a few spare shirts, lots of socks and underwear, and her shower things. No gloves, no scarves — that part of her life was over. The jeans and shoes and coat she’d be wearing when she walked out of there. Enough to get by on for a while, but not too much to carry on a motorcycle.
Then she went to bed. If she was going to be up half the night riding, best to get some sleep now.
The alarm under her pillow woke her at 1:15, and she pulled on her clothes. Taking a cue from Logan, she layered on several shirts and put a sweater on top — an easy way of carrying more clothing away with her, and warmer in this weather.
She made it through the dorm without running into any late-night studiers or wandering night owls. A few people were still awake — she could hear music behind one or two of the doors she passed — but no one saw her leaving.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the door behind her and struck out across the campus. Hopefully Logan was early and she wouldn’t be stuck waiting for him in the dark and the cold. Hopefully Logan wouldn’t have been *too* early and spent a long time waiting in the cold dark himself...
Marie was smiling as she passed the last building and reached the trees. The smile died as she heard:
"Miss Gordon, we at the Massachusetts Academy take our rules seriously — especially the ones regarding transgressing curfew and leaving the school property without permission."
Emma Frost was leaning casually against the wall of the science building Marie had just passed. Spread out to either side of her were Sharon, Marc, Haroun, and Angelica. (Jerod had been left to recuperate.)
[How the hell did I miss seeing them?!]
[Probably Frosty used a bit of mindcontrol on you, made you not notice them or something.] Inner Logan was not pleased.
Neither would Outer Logan be, if he knew — and he might be here at the Academy by now. The question was whether he would have noticed what was going on...
Trying to make her voice loud enough to carry to supersensitive ears at the rendezvous oak without *sounding* like she was pitching her voice for potential eavesdroppers, "Not a problem, Frosty. I won’t be a student here anymore." She was pleased by the annoyed look that crossed Emma’s face, though whether the reaction was to the statement or merely the nickname was hard to tell.
"Marie, your parents entrusted you into my care because they want you to have the training I can provide..."
"No, they ‘entrusted me into your care’ because you fucked with their heads to make them hand me over to you." Marie was interested to see the startled glances the other students were exchanging behind Emma’s back. [Did they not *know* what she’s *like*?]
[She’s a telepath — if any of them get suspicious, she can fuck with their heads and make ‘em forget it. Besides, I’ll bet none of them have met Chuckie — they don’t know what an *ethical* mindreader is like,] Logan advised.
In the time it took for Marie to process the students’ reactions, Frost had composed her reply. "Marie, by your own admission, you let your parents think that Professor Xavier was unable to help you control you power. Is it so hard to believe that they would prefer for you to try another instructor if the first was so clearly unable to help you?"
Marie narrowed her eyes. Allowing the fury to enter her voice — after all, loud was good right now — she snarled, "What’s ’hard to believe’ is that the parents who wanted to pretend that I’m not a mutant refused to come get me when I told them I can pass for human now. They don’t give a *flying FUCK* about me using my power to the best of my ability — they just want to be able to pretend that the last two years never happened so they can have their normal little girl back!" By the end of the rant her voice had reached full bellow — if Logan were on the school grounds at all, he would know where Marie was and that she was having Ice Bitch problems.
Meanwhile, the other students were looking worried. Emma, though, still thought she had the situation in hand. "I’m afraid I may have had to dispel a few of your parents’ dearly-held *illusions*, Marie, but that’s hardly the same thing as... ‘screwing with their heads.’ Perhaps you’ve been overidentifying with these illusions because *you* wanted so much to erase the past two years and go back to the way things were before your abilities manifested?"
The worst thing was that the bitch actually sounded like she was making sense. Angelica was nodding significantly to Sharon, clearly pleased to have Marie’s slander of the noble Ms. Frost so neatly discredited.
Gone was the bellow of mere minutes ago, replaced by the strangled whisper of helpless rage. "Two years ago, I hadn’t met *Logan*..."
"Ah. So this is about *him*. You’re running away to be with your *lover*. You’re throwing yourself upon the mercy of a man old enough to be your father and expecting him to take care of you indefinitely." Frosty paused to let that sink in. Behind her, Angelica and Sharon looked like they were trying to decide whether that was romantic or just dumb — Angelica was seemingly coming down on the side of "sweet" while Sharon looked to be veering towards "stupid". Marc looked heartsick. Haroun looked contemptuous — but then that seemed to be his standard expression, so it might not have related to Marie’s situation.
"It’s not like that, " Marie said softly, all the while realizing that everything Emma had said was *literally* true. It was the *way* Frosty was phrasing it, the implications she was making, that were slanted to leave a false impression.
"Oh? So you’ll be able to take care of yourself? Get a job? Pay your bills? At sixteen?"
"I managed just fine on my own for eight months before I met Logan and wound up at Xavier’s." [Never mind that I started out with a few hundred dollars when I left home that I don’t have now — *she* doesn’t need to hear that...]
"I don’t think that being a homeless runaway qualifies as ‘managing just fine’," Emma said acerbically.
[Damn. Was that a lucky guess, did she learn about it from my parents or the Professor, or did she manage to read it from me without me even realizing it?]
"In any case, you’ll be better off completing your education. Otherwise you’ll no doubt find yourself an abandoned high school dropout when your lover goes on to the next pretty young thing to catch his eye and leaves you to fend for yourself."
"That’s not going to happen."
The frustrated rage dissipated at the familiar voice. Marie felt herself smirking and didn’t bother to stop. Logan had indeed heard the argument and, after eavesdropping from the concealment of the wooded grounds for an unknown amount of time, had interposed himself into the conversation.
"I told you that before. I’m serious about Marie and I’m not gonna just get bored with her and drop her like an old newspaper." As Logan approached the group in the lee of the science building, Marie sidled around to meet him, presenting a united front against Frost and her minions.
At least the minions looked nervous — still sore from the afternoon’s ass-kicking, no doubt. Emma seemed to be made of sterner stuff — or else severely underestimating Logan and Marie’s combined ability to plow through anything that was likely to be thrown at them. "*Mister* Logan. I’m afraid that after this afternoon, your presence on these school grounds is unwelcome."
"Don’t worry — I’m just leaving."
"Alone."
"Nope."
"I’m going with him."
"I’m afraid not," Frosty said smoothly. "Catseye, Bevatron — if you could stop Miss Gordon from leaving..."
"Marie, I’m really sorry about this," Marc murmured as he and Sharon came within reach.
"Yeah, I’ll just bet." Making a feint towards Logan, Marie shifted directions at the last second to duck between the pair of them. Sharon, reflexes quicker than either her companion’s or Rogue’s, managed to get a hand on her arm as she tried to pass. Expecting the resistance, Marie drove an elbow back into the other girl’s midsection, aiming for her solar plexus but unfortunately hampered by her backpack. Marc got her other arm in the split second she wasted trying to decide whether it would be worth jettisoning her backpack to escape.
"Firestar, Jetstream — stop him!" was Emma’s shouted warning as the Wolverine moved to intervene. It didn’t do a bloody bit of good — Angelica got off a single fireball before Wolvie reached the three struggling teenagers, at which point she dared throw no more. Haroun threw himself at the group, but was knocked aside by a flung Catseye as Wolverine efficiently dealt with two impediments simultaneously. Marc was the next to be treated to a brief unscheduled flight, and Marie was freed. Grabbing her arm, Logan turned to run...
And was halted, as Emma stepped into the fight. Marie actually ran into him, he froze so suddenly.
Walking towards the pair of them, "My goodness, you *are* a determined pair. I’m afraid I can’t allow you to take her away from here — but I just might reconsider that job opening after all. I think you could prove to be quite useful to me — *if* I can cure you of that tendency to disobedience..."
It took Marie a few moments to understand what had just happened. Frosty was approaching, and Logan was just *standing* there — not running, not speaking, not turning to look at either Emma or herself. Nothing the woman had said rated that kind of a frozen response.
It was the rising growl that both clued her in and warned her. The Ice Bitch had actually grabbed control of Logan telepathically — and the Wolverine didn’t like it one bit.
Having both Logan and the Wolverine sharing room in her head, Marie had a fair idea of the kind of mess that could result from taking Logan out of the picture and leaving Wolvie running the show. Tugging her arm from his frozen grip, she pulled away to give him some room while turning herself to look at Emma. "I don’t think that’s a good idea, Frosty," she said mildly. Giving the bitch a warning was only fair — but Marie wasn’t exactly going to weep for her if she ignored the freely given advice.
"Ridiculous child — here I am offering the both of you what you said you *wanted*, a position here for your lover."
Rogue might have explained herself then — told Frosty that the inadvisable part lay in exerting telepathic influence on Logan — but the point became moot. Marie didn’t know whether the Wolverine broke free at that point or Logan deliberately slipped his leash — but either way, the beast was loose.
Loose, and bearing a grudge.
Emma’s first warning that things were not going as planned came when Wolvie turned. She frowned, plainly trying to strengthen her control over Logan, not realizing that Logan was no longer her problem.
Next came the gasps and widened eyes all around, as Wolverine popped his claws for the first time since setting foot on the campus. The <snikt!> was almost drowned out by the hoarse growl, rapidly increasing in volume.
Frost might have died then and there, had not Firestar risen to the occasion with a hasty incendiary barrage. She missed — or rather, Wolvie was too fast to hit — but the assault served to momentarily distract him from the Ice Bitch. Haroun hit him then, knocking Wolverine away from Angelica before he could reach her, but wisely dropping him some twenty or thirty feet away rather than leaving himself in close proximity to the claws for longer than a few seconds.
Even as quickly as Jetstream dropped Wolvie, he almost got himself carved up before swooshing safely out of range. Things could very easily have gotten very, very bloody — had Marie not been diving for Frosty even as the students assaulted Wolverine. With the other kids struggling to deal with her psychotic lover, and with Emma still trying to control the beast mentally, it was beyond easy to clap a bare hand to the woman’s face.
And the thing about her gift, about having *control*, was that she *did* have it. Not merely shutting it off (which was a blessed thing in and of itself), but taking *only* thoughts and memories (as she did so often with Logan), or taking *only* a mutant ability (as Logan insisted on doing whenever she got well-battered after a combat practice session). She hadn’t tried it, but she suspected that she might even have enough control by now to put someone in a coma *without* getting a head full of them.
And she was willing to test that theory on Frosty right here and now — but not as the first resort. The first thing to do was to break her hold on Logan...
...Which became beyond easy, by removing her telepathy. No telepathy, no mindcontrol...
Taking the power from Emma, Marie made sure to skim the most recently-formed memories along with it. What she learned that Emma had done — tried to grab Logan, not realizing that the Wolverine was a separate segment of personality not susceptible to mindcontrol — surprised her not at all.
The surprise came in what Emma had been thinking as she did it.
/The girl is probably beyond salvaging by now — rebellious, independent, needing no training, and loyal only to herself and her lover. Perhaps not a great loss — her power only works by touch contact, not very good in a combat situation, and if she can’t touch anyone useful she has nothing. I want the man, though — I can *use* him. He can fight, he can train my students to fight — and I can *make* him forget the girl.../
Freed as abruptly as he’d been grabbed, Logan stopped in mid-charge, wondering what the hell had just happened. [Okay, the Frost Bitch tried to grab me — so why am I loose now?] Seeing Marie with her hands pressed to Frosty — and smelling the rage wafting from Marie — pretty neatly answered that. Retracting his claws, he cautiously advanced on the pair. "Marie?"
"You all right, sugar?"
"Not very happy about Frosty here trying to jerk me around like that."
"I’m not very happy about that one, either. *Especially* with what she wanted you for." Shifting her attention, "You just can’t take ‘No’ for an answer, can you, Frosty?" Sensing an impending attack, Rogue increased the pull to the point of pain for just a fraction of a second. "*Don’t* try it. I can put you in a coma if I want to — *don’t* make me want to."
"She’s not the only one." Logan popped the claws on his right hand warningly. "So you kids keep your distance if you like your principal here in one piece." The students froze, Sharon and Marc having been attempting to sneak up on the pair holding their headmistress hostage.
"We’re going to leave now, do you understand? Logan and I are going to exit the school property and drive away from here, and you aren’t going to try to stop us anymore."
"And in exchange, she and I are going to let you and your kids go on back to your beds without fucking you up. Because we *can* fuck you up — *severely* — and if you try to stop us again, we’re gonna stop being so nice and you’re gonna see just how badly the pair of us can do it."
The buzz from hearing Logan making threats on behalf of the amount of damage the pair of them could do — not just for himself, but for *both* of them — created a warm glow that helped counteract Marie’s desire to drain Emma to a husk.
[Besides, you don’t want to risk having *her* in your head any more than the taste you’ve already got,] Inner Logan murmured soothingly.
"I’m going to let go of you now. *Don’t* try anything funny..." ::And I’ll *know* if you’re trying anything funny, for the rest of the night at least...:: Marie released Emma, moving backwards to keep the woman in sight as she rejoined Logan. Logan was doing his part by keeping an eye on the kids, leaving one set of claws out in a highly visible warning as the pair made their cautious getaway into the trees.
Because this was definitely a case where appearance mattered, they didn’t start running until they were out of sight in the trees. Logan’s hearing was good enough to pick up the conversation that started up behind them as they disappeared into the night.
"Geeze, should have figured there’d be something freaky about a guy nicknamed ‘The Wolverine’." That was one of the girls, though he didn’t know her name. (It was Angelica.)
"What? Where did you hear that?" That was Frosty.
"From Marie. It was, like, his callsign or something. He has it on a dogtag that he gave to her."
"Good Lord."
"What, you’ve heard of him?" One of the guys, the one who’d been sent to grab Marie. Marc, that was his name.
"Yes, I have. And I had no idea that he was working at Xavier’s School..."
Logan might have sighed had he not been busy jogging for the school walls. He’d hoped he hadn’t managed to blow the X-Men’s cover with this little fiasco — but it was starting to appear likely...
* * *
"What makes you such a bitch, Emma?"
"Breeding, darling. Top class breeding."
— Jean and Emma, NEW X-MEN #116, by Grant Morrison
* * *
What with making certain that no one had been injured more seriously than a few bruises during that little fiasco and sending the students back to their beds, it was well past three AM when Emma found herself free to return to her own bed. Rather than sleeping, she nursed her Rogue-induced migraine while mulling over what had been learned from her telepathic examination of Logan’s psyche.
[What we have here,] Emma thought drowsily, [is a man who’s really a decent enough person. Likes children and animals, not especially fond of most other people but not wishing them any harm. Prefers to live and let live, considers them innocent until proven guilty and all that. But this man, Logan, has gotten hurt before. Badly. And he’s got company. An animal, like an attack dog — no, a wolverine. An attack wolverine. It’s a very well-trained wolverine. It can answer the door for him whenever someone on the outside knocks, and it can talk when he’s there for it to get the words from. The Wolverine actually handles most of his contact with the outside world. And the Wolverine, being a wolverine, pretty much hates people. Aside from a *very* few exceptions — like his mate — the Wolverine would prefer to see the whole teeming mass of humanity dead, and is willing to help as many along that route as possible. Logan keeps the Wolverine on a leash most of the time — he may even pull it back entirely when he’s dealing with someone he knows and trusts. But if something happens to take Logan out of the picture, if he’s traumatized to the point of withdrawal or angry enough to release the beast or, God help us, being controlled by a telepath — if the Wolverine gets loose without Logan there to rein it in, then there’s hell to pay. Because the Wolverine will kill whatever — *whoever* — is in its path until something stops it — or until everyone is dead...]
She set her jaw grimly. [And I came *that* close to turning it loose among my students tonight... Under the circumstances, I think that losing Rogue was an acceptable price to pay for getting rid of the Wolverine without fatalities.] She adjusted the washrag forming a cold compress on her forehead. [Still, a bloody shame I didn’t tell him he had the job when he was asking for it. He would have been useful — as a combat trainer *and* as a telepath-proof, gun-and-knife-proof fighter. It would have been one hell of a coup to have stolen one of the X-Men, too. And why am I *not* surprised to learn that Xavier’s School for the Gifted was training a small mutant attack force on the side? I *knew* that air of noble principles had to be a cover of some kind...]
Emma studied her clear pink nail polish thoughtfully. [Chipping. Need to redo them. Hard to believe that Xavier let a "teacher" bone an underaged student like that, no matter *how* useful he is or *how* difficult she may have been to manage. I wonder... I wonder if Xavier even *knew*?] She sat up as the implications of the thought began to unfold, absently letting the damp rag fall into her lap. [He’s so prudish about using his talent, he might well have *been* completely oblivious. Especially with the pair of them being as difficult to read as they both are.] A smile began to slowly blossom on her face. [If he knew, he might refuse to take Logan back — and where he goes, goes Rogue. That’s one X-Man and one *future* X-Man lost to him, even if *we* can’t have them. And since Magneto nearly killed Rogue, I can’t see them going to the Brotherhood, either.] Absentmindedly she began to flake the peeling polish from one thumbnail, remembering what she had learned of the girl during the highly-publicized trial of Erik Lensherr and through her own later research and surveillance. [I don’t think that either of them is really the crusading type. If they aren’t part of a team, they’ll more than likely just go their own way. Two powerful players taken off the board — neutralized...]
Emma rose from the bed and made her way to the desk, beginning to flip through her Rolodex. [Where *is* that number — ah, "Xavier’s School for the Gifted." I think I need to make a phone call, just as a courtesy from one educator to another, to warn him about the pedophile who used to be on his staff. Just as soon as it gets to a decent hour...] The smile on her face was chilling, predatory.
* * *
"Sorry I’m late, sir. Minor incident at breakfast." Scott was the last of the group to let himself into Xavier’s office.
"Nothing worrisome, I trust?"
"Bobby decided to adjust the temperature of the juice dispenser. We managed to chip him loose eventually."
The Professor sighed and refrained from inquiring as to the extent of the dining room damage. "I would like to thank you all for taking the time before your first classes for this meeting. I’ll try to make it brief. Bright and early this morning I received a telephone call from Ms. Emma Frost. She had a very interesting tale to tell..."
"Is Rogue all right?"
"That may be a matter of some debate, Ororo. It seems, according to my — " <cough> " — esteemed colleague, that Miss Gordon has been leaving the lot of us very much in the dark concerning her abilities to control her power."
"Why would she — " Scott began, only to be cut off by Jean.
"This is about her parents, isn’t it? They want her home — and she doesn’t want to go?"
Hank frowned. "Pardon my disbelief, but why *wouldn’t* Rogue want to return home? She seems to genuinely miss her parents. And even if she prefers to remain here, I can see no reason for her to have concealed her abilities from *us*."
"I was getting to that. Ms. Frost *claims* that Rogue was concealing her control to prevent suspicion, because she was having an affair with a faculty member." Charles paused significantly, watching all of the faculty members — all the *remaining* members — exchanging confused, suspicious, or speculative glances.
Scott was the first to realize which "faculty member" Xavier most likely referred to. "That sneaking, two-faced *pervert*...!"
Behind Scott, Ororo’s eyes widened. Hank remained skeptical. Jean looked disbelieving. "Professor, you *can’t* mean — wait. Did Ms. Frost get this from Rogue? Because she’s always had a crush on him — she could have been fantasizing..."
"According to Ms. Frost, Logan came to her school yesterday seeking a position as a self-defense instructor or the like. She refused him, upon learning of his relationship with a sixteen-year-old student, and last night in the wee hours he returned to her school and ‘abducted’ Miss Gordon." Charles allowed the four X-Men time to process this information.
"He *‘abducted’* her? Carried her off? Sir, we have to find them!" That was Scott, always ready to believe the worst of Logan. Beside him, Jean was slowly shaking her head from side to side, stunned and still disbelieving. Ororo looked thoughtful, as did Hank.
"I think the term ‘abducted’ was a matter of dramatic hyperbole on Ms. Frost’s part. Apparently Rogue was a willing co-conspirator in her own kidnapping. In fact, Ms. Frost was rather incensed by Rogue’s willingness to use her power against the headmistress to facilitate their escape."
"That son of a bitch..." Scott’s flash of outrage had cooled to a low burn of helpless indignation.
"Professor, just how trustworthy a source *is* Ms. Frost?" Jean was clinging to hope.
"Not at all, which is why I called you in here. If any of you know anything that may serve to prove — or disprove — any part of her assertions, I should very much like to hear it."
A moment of silence, which Ororo ended. "I believe it could be true."
"Ro, how could you say — "
"I did not say it *was* true, Jean, merely that it *could* be. *If* Logan is a much better actor than we’ve given him credit for, and *if* she loves him — or believes that she does — enough to hide her control to stay with him..."
"That *bastard*. Making that little girl keep from touching anyone else and layer up in all those extra clothes when she didn’t even *need* to, just to keep her where he could get at her..."
Tiring of Scott’s seething and Jean’s denial, Xavier turned his attention to the person who hadn’t weighed in with an opinion yet. "Hank? Your thoughts on the subject?"
"Hmm? Oh, I was just wondering about how she could have possibly gained control. Considering what I read in their medical files, if Logan suffered so comparatively little from the ill effects of Rogue’s ability, it would make him an excellent guinea pig for practicing on."
"Then you believe Ms. Frost’s allegations?"
"I wouldn’t care to testify under oath on the subject — but we all knew that they were close to one another. And it has to mean *something* that he left mere days after she did..."
"As much as I hate to admit it, Hank has a point." Jean looked tired now that reality had seeped in.
"So what are we going to do about this, sir?" Scott looked alert, clearly hoping for the order — or at least the permission — to go track down the couple and retrieve their wayward student. (To hell with Logan, of course. Ideally very soon...)
"Do? Given that our source of information is untrustworthy at best and actively duplicitous at worst, we’re not going to jump to any rash assumptions. What we *are* going to do is attempt to contact the pair of them — and if they return here, whether today or at some point in the future, we will *not* make accusations without first getting to the bottom of this."
Scott was clearly disappointed, Jean just as clearly relieved.
"How were you planning to contact them? Cerebro?" Hank was, as ever, moving on to the problem that *could* be worked on now.
"If necessary, though I’ll also try Logan’s cell phone. I believe that the Gordons should be notified, if Ms. Frost hasn’t done so already — though it would be very interesting indeed if she had *not* done so, or if they had been given a different story..."
"You can try e-mail, too. I believe Kitty and Jubilee have her address," Storm volunteered.
"An excellent suggestion. Yes. If you could handle that, Ororo — I am sure you would know what best to say." Xavier trusted Ro’s discretion — not to mention her ability to remain soothing and non-accusatory. Jean was more frequently called up on liaison duties, but given her apparent sense of betrayal at Logan’s "defection," her skills in diplomacy might not be up to this particular situation.
"Let me get this straight. We’re going to see if Logan decides to start answering his phone again, and send Rogue an *e-mail*, and call her parents — and that’s *it*? We’re going to let an underage girl go running off with a psycho killer probably old enough to be her *grandfather* — and not try to stop her?!"
"Scott, this is a sanctuary — not a prison. We can offer the both of them a home, a place in the school or on the team, but only if they wish to be here. If they want to go, we have to let them. We can only offer our help — not force it upon them..."
* * *
They had made it all the way into Pennsylvania before stopping to rest. Passing through New York, they *could* have gone back to the X-Mansion — but paranoia seemed the order of the night. After all, they had no way of knowing how the X-Crew would react to having Logan and Marie show up unexpectedly on their doorstep after he had quit and she had been transferred to another school.
More to the point, neither of them trusted Frosty to accept that she had been beaten and leave them alone to go their merry way. She had taken Marie right from under the X-Men’s noses and reached down to Mississippi to affect Marie’s parents — who knew what other dirty tricks she had up her sleeve? So they got themselves past New York state entirely — and New Jersey as well — before picking a motel and getting a room.
It had taken some negotiating — or rather, a certain amount of cash and a lot of snarling on Logan’s part — but they managed to get the desk clerk to give them a room before the scheduled check-in hours. That accomplished, they collapsed into bed — a sheet carefully tucked around Marie, she not being willing to trust her control while sleeping yet — and slept until well into the afternoon.
Waking together in a motel bed was familiar. During Marie’s first drowsy minutes of consciousness, this felt like nothing more than another pickup run. The quality of the light when she finally opened her eyes could have indicated either early morning or late afternoon.
She had pulled the sheet aside to snuggle into Logan’s bare chest when memory abruptly resurfaced. Frost — her parents — the escape — [*Oh*.] Raising her head to see if Logan was awake yet, she was met with a thoughtful gaze.
"Mornin’," he said. The lack of an endearment, smile, or "good" prefacing the "morning" were all indicative.
[He’s worried.]
"So. We’re here, we’re together — now what?"
*That* earned her a quirk of one corner of his mouth, an ironic not-quite-smile. "Good question."
"So. We can go to Mississippi. We can go back to the X-Men. Or we can strike out on our own."
"Or we can go back to Frosty and see if she’s reconsidered." At Marie’s disbelieving stare, he added, "The option *does* exist — but it wouldn’t be my first choice."
"*Or* mine." Marie glared at the absent Ice Bitch, almost wishing that she *had* taken the chance and tried putting the woman into a coma.
"So we agree, then. Whatever we do, we want *not* to go back there."
"Right."
"Which means we may not want to go to Mississippi, since Frosty ‘fixed’ your parents. They’d probably just try to send you back to her."
"Right." More brooding. "Almost" wished, hell. She *did* wish she’d put Frosty into a coma. The bitch would have deserved it.
"And Chuckie’s..." He hesitated. "I think they’d actually try helping you to stay, this time. *Especially* now that we know that Frosty fucked with your parents." He paused, an idea occurring to him. "Wheels might even be able to unfuck your parents for you. Keep Frost from making them send you to her."
Marie heard the hesitation in his voice. "But?"
"But Chuck — and Scooter, and maybe even Jeannie — might feel like they need to go ahead and send you on home to Mississippi if your parents want. Which they *will* want, if Chuck fixes them."
"And even if they don’t, I can’t see them agreeing that you and me are a good thing together. *Any* of them — my parents or the X-Men. And I can’t really tell them all to stay out of it until I’m legal."
"Right." The annoyance was obvious, in his tone and expression both.
"So, I guess that leaves striking out on our own."
He looked — not worried, exactly, but serious. Concerned. "It’s not a real cushy life. Sometimes the road gets pretty dangerous."
"I know. I was on my own for eight months before we met, remember?"
Logan sighed and nodded. "Least you’ll be better off with me than alone. What about school?"
"What *about* it?"
"It’s kind of important if you want to try doing the whole normal life thing at some point. Makes it easier to get a decent job." Pause, before admitting, "Plus, I feel less like I’m maybe wrecking your life running off with you like this if you at least get your schooling finished. Go to college. That kind of thing."
Marie had grave doubts as to how "normal" a life an ex-X-Man and former future X-Man could have. Still, he was concerned about her future quality of life, which was touching. More to the point, he was warning her of a potential upcoming guilt issue for him, and those she *always* watched out for. (God forbid he should manage to convince himself someday that she’d be better off without him!)
"So I’ll keep studying. Maybe take correspondence courses. Get my GED." He still looked uncomfortable. Inspiration struck. "Once I’m eighteen, Frost won’t be able to get at me legally through my parents. So if I haven’t managed to get my diploma or whatever by then, we could go on back to the X-Men. I’ll be old enough by then that they won’t be able to really do anything about us being together."
"Except refuse to take us back — or take *me* back, anyway." He was grumbling, but his expression had lightened a bit.
"It’s both of us or neither, and they’ll *want* us back.. There aren’t *that* many would-be superheroes around, and you’re *good*."
Wryly, "Yeah, I’m ‘good’ — and I can’t keep my hands off the students."
"No, you just can’t keep your hands off *me*. And by the time I turn eighteen, we’ll have been together for close to two years. That’ll make it *real* hard for them to argue that you’re gonna get bored and leave me or won’t treat me right or something. We’ll have had time to *prove* we can do this."
The unhappy expression had faded. Logan met her eyes with something new — hope, strengthening into determination. "We *can*. We can do this."
"Yes."
"And I’m going to take care of you. You know that."
"Yes. And *I’m* going to take care of *you*." At his amused expression, she tapped him firmly on the chest. "It’s a two-way street, *bub*. A partnership. We watch each others’ backs, look out for each other."
"A team." The amusement remained, with something else kindling in his eyes.
"Right."
"Love you. You know that."
"I know. I love you, too."
THE END