I suck at summaries. Mainly because if my life was a book, it would be the most disgustingly terrifying book in existence (it even scares me at times)... until I met her.
The “her” I am referring to is the beautiful Southern angel I met on one of Xavier’s damn mercy missions for troubled teens who couldn’t control their powers (let’s face it, it was a recruitment drive for future x-men), and for some reason he had decided I would be the perfect person for the job, along with Storm, hey, someone had to keep me in line... yeah right.
The first thought out of my head when I saw her after stalking in the front door after the short balding man who must have been her father was, “Damn!” which was quickly followed by “Oh, damn,” she couldn’t have been much more than 16, maybe 17 at the most, I could tell from that minute she was gonna be one hell of a hot woman.
It turned out she was 17, and a half, she didn’t tell us her name, introduced herself as Rogue and listened with an edge of boredom while Storm recited Xavier’s recruitment speech. Her parents seemed damn eager to get rid of her, if the way they quickly agreed with Storm, “It would be best for her”. Shit, her father couldn’t even bring himself to use her name, people suck like that, fear, turns them into assholes.
She sat quietly on the couch the whole time, seeming to be more interested in me than whatever Storm was saying, until she finished talking. Then the girl began questioning her on everything from the schools location, size, student population, whether she’d have to share a room (with a mutation liked hers I’m not surprised she didn’t want to share a room), what classes the school offered, even what the climate was like.
During this interrogation, Storm told her that she could control the weather, the kid looked pretty intrigued by that, she even asked if Storm could make it snow in Meridian right now, which Storm declined, not a good idea to make a scene. And then she ask what classes I taught, I don’t know where it came from but before I could think I said “Art,” I mean seriously, do I look like an art teacher? Obviously not giving the look she was now shooting at me, later I explained that I taught martial arts, so, there is art in there.
She had obviously made up her mind to come by then, can’t see why she would have even considered staying, it’s not like the couple in front of me really seemed to care one iota what happened to her, as her last question was about the big shaggy dog who was sitting on the couch beside her much to her mother’s seeming disapproval.
Storm started to speak again, more than likely to say ‘no damn way’, Ororo doesn’t really like dogs, but it was obvious given the way the girl was all but clinging to the dog that it was a lifeline of sorts, she could obviously touch the dog without her gloves on and that made her feel comfortable, so I said “Yes,” before Storm could formulate her reply.
I could tell by the shift in her scent she wasn’t happy about me giving permission without consulting her, hey, that is what she was about to do, and she clarified that the girl could take him but that some of the students didn’t like dogs and if his presence caused too much of a stir he would have to leave.
I swear if her parents hadn’t been so god damn scared of her they would have physically shoved her out of the room to go pack her bags but she left quickly of her own accord; I detected relief in her scent as she ran up the stairs to her room. I followed along behind, having had enough of Storm reassuring parents who obviously didn’t want to know anything more about her, that she would be safe and well cared for and they were welcome to visit, etc, etc.
She stood in the middle of her room for a few moments just looking all around her before sliding a big duffle bag out from under her bed, she threw several articles of clothing, and toiletries, a book, a computer and a few other things into the bag, then grabbed a blanket out of the dog basket, and the bone shaped toy next to it and stuffed them in as well. Wow, she was a light packer.
She turned suddenly catching me in the doorway; I made a comment that I’d thought she’d got lost then told her to hurry up and headed back down stairs. Her parents were by this time getting pretty impatient waiting for us all to leave, her father asking, “Is she coming yet?” when I stepped into his line of site, I nodded and hoped the kid hadn’t been close enough behind me to hear that. She hadn’t, still somewhere at the top of the stairs, taking one last look at all the photos of good times she’d had in this house, with these people.
She looked like she was about to cry, and it pissed me off, how could these people do this to their own child, the kid couldn’t help her genetics and whatever genetic abnormalities cropped up. I grabbed her bag and did what I was best at, got the hell outta dodge, I watched as the kid snapped a lead on the faithful mutt, the only thing in that house that seemed to care about her.
She started to make her way out then stopped and handed Storm the leash, I just about laughed at the look on Storm’s face when she did (did I mention Storm doesn’t like dogs?), then hurried inside, returning quickly with a dog bowl, at least the girl had a good head on her shoulders. She hurried up to the car and dropped the bowl in the boot next to where I had stuck her bag, then she jumped into the car, the dog didn’t have as much luck, getting about halfway in before getting stuck, why didn’t the thing just jump?
I picked up the dog, Jack I think the girl said his name was, and stuck him in the car shutting the door behind him, he immediately mashed his nose against the glass; I’d better open that window before he tries to go through it, before seating myself behind the steering wheel.
Her parents had followed Storm onto the porch. They wished her a hurried goodbye before, without a single glance towards their daughter, turned and walked inside, shutting the door behind them. I could smell the salt of unshed tears and watched the girl through the rear-view mirror as the dog abandoned his post at the window and set his shaggy head on her lap, she smiled at that, and flashed me one too, it didn’t reach her eyes though. She would be alright, she was a strong one.
The trip was quiet after Storm gave up trying to talk to the girl, it was obvious to anyone that she didn’t want to talk, and who could really blame her? We drove for a couple of hours, pulling off the highway just before dusk. I dropped Storm and the girl at the local diner then drove on a bit to reserve a few rooms at the motel.
When I got back they were both seated, the shaggy mutt comfortably resting under the girl’s feet. Storm had ordered for me, not uncommon giving we had been on several away missions together in the past, she knew what I liked even if she did turn her nose up at it in favour of her rabbit food, I mean salad.
Storm excused herself to the “ladies room” a few minutes later and I took the opportunity to talk to the girl, I belatedly realised I hadn’t introduced myself before so I did, she introduced herself too finally, ‘Rogue’s name was actually Marie, nice name I thought, didn’t tell her that though.
I questioned her for a while about her home and friends, she wasn’t very comfortable talking about that stuff, for obvious reasons I suppose given she had all but been kicked out of her home. Ororo returned soon after and seemed very pleased that I had gotten the girl to talk and began asking her own questions about the girls schooling, her interests and hobbies. She opened up a little, even smiled once or twice, all in all, a pretty good night.
It took four days for them to get back to New York, would have been faster had they sent the jet but the Professor didn’t want to scare the kid, so we got stuck going cross country, Marie seemed to enjoy it though, and we only had to stop every few hours or so for bathroom breaks, which is pretty good considering we had a dog with us.
When we got back, it was late, they had a room ready for the girl, a smaller room on the teachers wing right next door to mine, and across the hall from Storm, given she knew us it would be good for her to have us close by in case she needed anything.
The girl got ready for bed pretty soon after getting to her room, tossed and turned for a while before getting up again. I could hear drawers and doors opening so I figured she was unpacking, that obviously didn’t tire her out cause next she booted up her computer, that damn little mouse is going to drive me insane with its ‘click, click, click click’ing. Next she turned on some music, not too loud, good, and she has good taste in music too.
Then I remembered something I was going to get, the last thing I need is a dog pissing everywhere, so I went back downstairs and nicked one of potted shrubs that Storm had put out the front. By the time I had lugged it up the stairs and through my room onto the balcony that opened off my, and now Marie’s, rooms she was out on the balcony.
I pushed the small tree into a corner nearer to Marie’s room and said it was for the dog to piss on, she got this weird look on her face so I beat a hasty retreat telling her to get some sleep on my way in, her first class was at eight the next morning.
Over the next few weeks she settled in well, she seemed to have a lot of friends, and made a few enemies when a few of the kids complained about her getting her own room, she suggested she would bunk with them and suck there life out if they liked. Needless to say none of them were willing to try it.
After that, she became a player in the ‘mutant war’ when Magneto tried to kidnap her, he had to try a couple of times before he got her, destroying a train, and throwing me around like a damn ragdoll in the process. That was, at the time, the scariest day of my life.
We managed to track him down, but by the time we caught up with him Marie was just about dead after he stuck her in some machine, I ran on instinct, I needed to save her and I touched her, let me tell you that kid packs one hell of a punch, enough to put me down for three days but it was worth it, she lived, until the Professor told me she had gotten my memories and started having my nightmares.
I tracked her down, made sure she was alright. I told her what the Professor had told me and made sure she knew that if she needed anything I would help her, the best I could, and I was sorry that she ended up with that crap, she didn’t deserve it. She just looked me dead in the eye and said seriously that bad memories and a few nightmares were a small price to pay for her life. Then she smiled up at me and asked for a hug, do I look like the kind of guy who gives hugs?
Obviously I did cause she asked, and for some insane reason I did, give her a hug that is, I hope no one else saw, at least that’s what I was thinking until I realised she was crying, it was the first time she had cried since I had met her. I guess everything finally caught up with her, and I was happy to comfort her, she deserved a shoulder to cry on after everything she had been through.
There was a lot to that girl that no one else ever saw, she was almost a completely different person when we were just hanging out wherever, the balcony was a favourite, we worked in the garage together, and I started training Marie separately to the other students, she had picked up a lot from touching me so was a lot more advanced than the rest of the students.
A few months later, the mansion was attacked by a secret paramilitary group that was experimenting on mutants, they wanted test subjects among other things; I think they might be linked to whatever happened to me before I can remember, some of those guys looked familiar. And again, little Marie was in trouble, ‘well where else would she have been?’ I asked myself, and then we both helped save all the mutants on the planet, and no I am not over exaggerating there.
After that, the “cure” was brought out. Marie came to me and said she wanted to take it, she didn’t want to have to be scared all the time that someone would touch her or she might touch someone else, I warned her that it hadn’t been tested, no one knew if it actually worked or not, or what effect it might have. She considered it and eventually decided that if it had to be tested they needed to test it on someone so they could test it on her.
It didn’t work we found out quickly enough, Marie was the first mutant who took the cure to have her powers come back, something about being a very powerful mutant, it had a good side effect though, it allowed her to finally get a hold on her mutation, to control it, and very well too.
After she first took the cure she came back to the school, I knew she would, there was no way she would go back to Mississippi and I was waiting for her when she got back. She held out her hand which I took and solemnly shook before she threw her arms around my neck giggling as she hugged me, she didn’t do it very often, either giggle like a little girl or hug anyone, so it was nice, especially to see how happy she was.
We shared a beer on the porch in silence, until it started raining, then thunder started clapping and lightning started flashing, I don’t much like lightning, it doesn’t go well with a metal skeleton, so we headed indoors, raiding the kitchen freezer on the way upstairs for ice cream. We found a surprising amount of Marie’s favourite, Double-Choc Fudge, I made a quick detour earlier that day to make sure it was waiting for her; damn I’m turning into a pansy.
We went up to my room then and switched on the sports channel, the sounds of roaring crowds at the NHL final drowned out Marie’s squeals when I started a freeze war with a cold spoon, eventually we progressed onto pillow fights. I would have won too between the pillow hits and the tickling but she smacked me a good one and knocked me off the bed. Yes, I was beaten by a girl.
Then Scooter showed up and kicked Marie out, the faces she was making at his turned back were pretty funny, that and the attempt at a lecture about letting students in my room and “stealing school property”, I had bought the ice cream with my own money I’d like to add, lead to a hilarious end to a good night, especially when Scooter finally figured out I was laughing at what was over his shoulder and whirled around on Marie who immediately pasted a sickly sweet angelic smile on her face and trotted off to bed.
Summer came, and for the first summer in the year and a half Marie had been living at the school she could dress like all the other girls, I was happy for her, until I noticed the clothes she was wearing around the place. Now I’ve got no problem with women showing off a little skin, it’s nice to look at, and Marie certainly wasn’t lacking in the looks department, but damn, did she have to show off that much?
I was doing a pretty good job at keeping my thoughts to myself about her clothing choices, who was I to dictate what she could and could not wear, and not comin’ in my pants every time she walked past, like I said, she wasn’t lacking in the looks department. All was fine, until one afternoon she came into my room, via the balcony, dressed in a few tiny scraps of material that were supposed to pass for a bikini.
I shouldn’t have taken a swig of my beer before looking up at her. She asked what I thought and spun around giving me a good view of all her curves, those few that were covered but more importantly those that weren’t. She said something about a door being stuck so she was using mine, and then sashayed her way across the room leaving me sitting staring at the door.
I couldn’t believe she was seriously considering wearing that out, I couldn’t believe I was gonna sit here and let her walk out of here dressed like that, I had to say something. I got up to follow, once my brain regained the necessary functions and followed her path out the door. I took the stairs and on the next floor I stopped just before turning the corner when Marie exited the girl’s bathroom on the dorm level.
She’d added a pair of, I think they’re called, board shorts and a rash vest to her outfit. Weird, I watched her join a small group of her friends as they headed down stairs, I started to get the feeling Marie was up to something. I headed back upstairs and checked her door from the outside, it didn’t budge, then I headed into her room from the balcony, when I got to her door, I knew why it was “stuck”, the bolt was across. She had deliberately “stuck” the door, just to walk through my room dressed like that?
Under normal circumstances I would never ever even consider doing what I did next, but this was desperate times, and called for desperate measures. I picked up her diary from the nightstand a flipped it open to the last entry.
“Operation: Tall, dark and drop dead gorgeous” was written at the top of the page. Followed by, “Stage 1: Not a kid anymore. Make him see I’m not a kid, I’m a woman, with a woman’s body, and he can look at me that way.” He read through all the stages of her plan, the very last one read, “Stage 5: Just do it already. If all previous stages fail, make some excuse to get in his bed and get naked. Idea *Say you’ve had a nightmare and crawl in before he realises you’re starkers. *Wait ‘til he’s not in the room then get in and wait for him. *Say you’ve had a nightmare climb into his bed, then complain about being hot and strip off.”
“If all above fails, I don’t know what the hell you’re gonna do girl, I’m out of ideas.” Obviously Jubilee, at least, helped her plan this, which meant she was serious, the bikini must be part of “Stage 1”. What the heck did he do now? Sure he liked Marie, she was beautiful, smart, funny, and obviously going to a lot of trouble to land him which meant this probably wasn’t a one night stand kind of gig, though he honestly couldn’t imagine Marie ever wanting something like that.
He dropped the diary back where he’d picked it up from and headed back to his room to think over his options. Turned out thinking about him and Marie together was about as productive as it had been the hundred thousand other times he’d thought of them romantically connected, see right-hand for past testimonies...
Before too long he heard her coming back, it would be dinner soon, he realised then her door was still locked and quickly shoved everything back in his pants, grabbed the magazine he’d been reading before and dropped back onto the bed just as she opened the door. Damn, she was back in just the bikini again, a towel draped over her arm.
She looked at him curiously then turned around and pushed the door closed, dropping the towel as she did so, she bent over to pick up the dropped towel giving him a great view of her ass under the wet white material. He growled before he could help himself, quickly turning his attention back to the page in front of him when she quickly straightened up.
“Did you say something?” she asked innocently, and he quickly shook his head, pretending to be engrossed in whatever was on the page in front of him as she slowly wandered across the room, snagging his beer before she decided to try “Stage 4”. His resolve not to look at her lasted about 2 seconds and he glanced up again when she was directly in front of him.
For the second time that day he choked on the same damn bottle of booze, the sight of her tits in the ultra thin covering of almost see through material was a little hard not to stare at, until Marie turned full on towards him and asked, “Are you feeling alright?”.
“Mhmm,” he mumbled, not trusting his mouth to say anything else. To his relief she took her leave before her could grab her and throw her down on the bed and... He dropped the magazine and went back into the bathroom shutting and locking the door behind him, before freeing himself from his pants again.
A few minutes later he exited the bathroom, shit, twice that time, and hoped Marie had decided to fix her door, he didn’t have a clue what would happen if he saw her again so soon. He’d barely finished that thought when who should step into the room but little miss Marie, bouncing around in, well mostly in, a tiny white sundress that barely covered her assets, let’s hope she doesn’t try the ‘accidentally drop something’ trick.
She grabbed my hand as she made her way across the room saying something about being late for dinner, looked like she was going to try ‘Stage 2’, of her plan, ‘Make him jealous’. I had to stop this now, before I lost my nerve, or looked below her chin. I planted my feet and waited until she turned towards me looking slightly irritated, with just a hint of anticipation under the surface.
“Go get changed into something decent kid,” probably not the best thing to say in that situation but the best I could come up with right then.
Of course she challenged me, “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
I forced my brain to think up a reasonable response that wouldn’t piss her off, or hurt her feelings, and finally came up with, “Look Marie, I know you’re enjoying being able to show off your skin and not have to be constantly covered... Shit kid I don’t know how to say this without upsetting you...” she looked up at me arms crossed across that gorgeous chest of hers and told me to just spit it out already.
I rushed out with, “Marie you don’t look nice dressed like that, you like one of these chicks,” I showed her the magazine that I’d dropped on the bed before.
“You seem to like them alright,” she shot back.
“But... Oh crap, how to say this... Marie you don’t want to be like those women, you’re better than them, all they are is something to look at, and yeah you’re right, I enjoy looking, but... When men look at those women they don’t care about them, they’re just something for us to use to get something for ourselves, and I don’t want people to look at you like that,” I stopped, hoping she’d understand what I was trying to say, seeing tears forming in eyes I hurried to apologized, I didn’t want to upset her, “I’m sorry Marie, I don’t want to hurt you but I would hate it if you got hurt because I didn’t say something and...”
“Thank you,” she whispered and threw her arms around me. Okay, I think she understood what I was trying to say.
Her scent shifted to determination and she lifted her face and started to say something, I seriously couldn’t talk to her right now if she was going to stay dressed like that so I suggested she get changed before we tried talking. I seriously doubted we’d be doing much talking if she didn’t.
She flashed me one of her most beautiful smiles and raced out of the room, I could hear her banging and thumping around in the room next door as she hurriedly changed, I think she fell over at least once in her haste. I set about changing a small piece of myself, I’d never had a problem with porn or checking out the hot, barely dressed chicks in these stupid magazines but it had just been hit home to me how destructive this sort of thing could be, to young women in particular.
They saw us men getting all worked up over these women and they thought that that was how they had to dress and act in order to make us happy, and that’s bull. I grabbed the trash can and pulled out my lighter, running the flame over the bottom corner of the pages I watched it burn.
Marie came in about then, dressed in her normal ratty old blue jeans and a tank that thankfully covered her gorgeous tits. She looked across the room at what I was holding in my hand, and its current state and asked, “What are you doing?” curiously and seemingly a little concerned.
“What does it look like?” I responded sarcastically.
In a typical Marie gesture she rolled her eyes at me, she’s probably the only person in existence that would dare to, and clarified, “Fine, why are you doing that?”
I turned to her as she seated herself on the bed beside me and revealed that I had figured out what she was doing with the bikini, I conveniently left out the part where I read her diary, and that I had seen her add to her outfit before joining her friends. I also added that the towel stunt was just plain mean.
She blushed prettily and I idly wondered how far down it went, she snapped me out of that with an apology, and admitted that she wanted me to look at her the same way I looked at other women, like I really believed what I said about her being beautiful, even though she didn’t always believe it when I told her, or when other people made her feel like she wasn’t.
I dropped the smouldering magazine into the trash can as the little flames licked up towards my fingers and turned her face to look up at me.
“You don’t want me to look at you how I look at those women Marie, those women want me to look at them the way I look at you, like they are the most beautiful women on the planet, because you are, and you don’t have to try these stupid stunts to get my attention, you’ve already got it.”
She hugged me again burying her face in my shirt as a few tears slipped past her lashes, I hugged her back and figuring it was about time I told her what I’d known for a while now, I loved her, and I always would. I couldn’t handle her crying anymore, I hate it when she does that, even if they are ‘happy tears’ so I reminded her we had dinner to get to and someone would come looking for us if we didn’t show soon.
She pulled away from me, and wiped her eyes, taking my hand we headed down stairs, she told me as we were leaving the room that she loved me too, “If you haven’t already figured that out.” We went our separate ways as we entered the dining hall, grabbing food and sitting at our usual tables. I kept an ear on the conversation at the table Marie was seated at behind me.
As it turns out, more than just Jubilee had been involved in this plan and they all wanted to know how it had gone. Marie said “Yes and no,” when asked if her plan had worked, Jubilee immediately responding, “You either got laid or you didn’t chica, which was it?”
“I didn’t,” Marie replied, adding a quiet “Yet.” Well, I’ll have to remedy that one.
Dinner was barely finished when the Professor called the four senior X-men to his office. Some urgent pick up in a remote area of Mexico, in a supposedly uninhabited area, one of the Professors contacts had been dobbed in to his superiors and was in the firing line, literally. Less than twenty minutes later the jet lifted off and we headed South-West into the gathering dusk.
Nine hours, nine fucking hellish hours later we finally got back, the Professors ‘contact’ was safe, if a little worse for wear he had at least one bullet hole and the prick was complaining, it’s times like these I wish I had scars for all the things I endured, I could show him the dozen bullets I took trying to save his scrawny ass.
I hit the Danger Room for a half hour, trying to wear off all the adrenaline still pumping through me, a half hearted simulation in a snowy mountain-scape, after I killed off all the baddies I watched the simulated sun set over the mountains and felt the usual post-mission calm settle over me, the Wolverine was sated for now, the blood-lust anyway, and I was going to bed.
I got up to my room and had just closed the door when I realised someone was already in there, the scent revealed Marie; I really hoped she wasn’t trying Stage 5 of her plan. A quick check under the covers revealed she wasn’t, so I striped off what was left of my uniform and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and climbed in next to her.
I watched her stir, her eyes popping open suddenly, a quick stab of fear and then her eyes must have adjusted to the darkness in the room, the moon set about 20 minutes ago, and she saw me watching her.
“When did you get back?” she whispered sleepily stretching a little.
“About half an hour ago,” I told her, then explained in brief the mission, and then questioned her as to what she was doing in my bed.
“Waiting for you of course,” she drawled sexily, rolling a little closer.
“Very funny,” I answered, I could smell her soap, and quite a bit of it so I knew she had recently had a shower, she only ever had showers in the evening or at night when she had had a nightmare.
“I was worried,” she answered honestly, “I had a nightmare and came in here hoping to get some sleep and waiting for you to get back.”
I pulled her close beside me and kissed her sleep tousled hair and told her to go back to sleep, which she promptly did. I listened to her breathe and the beat of her heart as I too fell asleep. ‘I could get used to this,’ was the last thought to pass through my mind as I drifted off.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
The much anticipated Logan's POV. Enjoy!
Chapter End Notes:
Glad people seem to like this story and thank you soo much for the reviews, it makes it all worth while! P.S. next chapter might be a while as it looks like I'm not going to have internet over Christmas weekend :-(