Three distinctive claw marks in the leather couch caught Rogue's attention as she walked through the rec room. She stopped, ran gloved fingers over the slices, and then straightened up, muttering curses under her breath. Just one night. She'd only wanted one night out with the girls without her husband playing the martyr to guilt her into staying or her husband looking at her *like that* until she couldn't make herself leave or her husband -- hmmm, a pattern -- working himself up into some stupid temper tantrum and ruining some more of Xavier's expensive furniture.

Rogue headed up to their small suite, letting her irritation build as she climbed the stairs, fully intending to start one of their not infrequent shouting matches. They were a wonderful way to clear the air, and they usually led to some really incredible sex. Logan looked hot when he was being all surly and stubborn.

When she arrived at their suite, an unsuspecting Logan was sitting in the oversized armchair in their room, his feet propped up on the ottoman, book in hand. He didn't look up from his reading. "Hey, darlin'. Did you have fun?"

"Sure did. Hey, sugar?" Rogue asked, waiting until she had his attention before crooking her finger at him. He usually responded better when he thought sex was in his immediate future. "Wanna take a walk with me?"

He lifted one eyebrow, a hint of a smile on his lips. "Doesn't look like I have a choice."

"No, you really don't." Rogue tilted her head, staring at him through her hair the way she knew he liked. "I wanna show you something, sugar."

Slowly, Logan placed a bookmark in his book, stood up, and followed Rogue out the door, moving with predatory grace. She glanced back at him a few times, letting her hips sway to keep his attention. When they reached the rec room, she dropped onto the couch, crossed her legs, and let him look.

Logan smirked. "We already christened the rec room, darlin'."

Rogue trailed her fingers slowly up her leather-clad thigh, enjoying the way his pupils dilated, and then let her hand drift over the parallel slices in the couch cushion. "Recognize this?" she purred, tracing the cut leather.

Frowning, Logan stared at the evidence. "No."

"Really?" she asked, honestly surprised.

"Really." Logan nodded. "I didn't do that." He tilted his head a fraction of an inch. "You don't think there'd be a little *more* damage, Marie?"

Hmmmm, good point. His last outburst had resulted in half the kitchen being trashed and then remodeled. On Logan's dime. Which was also Rogue's dime. Stupid vows.

Rogue stood and moved to his side. They both stared down at the distinctive cuts, nearly identical frowns in place. "If you didn't do it..." Rogue began. After a moment, they exchanged horrified looks. "You don't think...?"

Logan groaned. "Joey."

It made a horrifying kind of sense. Not that Joey had Logan's claws, of course, but for a five-year-old, Joey did have a healthy dose of Logan's destructive streak. Arms crossed, Rogue glared up at her husband. "You see? This is all your fault."

Logan whirled around to glower at his wife. "Excuse me?"

"Your child is slicing up the professor's couches--"

"Wait just a minute," Logan interrupted. "We don't know that Joey did this. Could've been any one of the kids at the school." Crossing his arms, Logan raised one expressive eyebrow. "Might even have been precious little Scooter."

Rogue actually snorted. "Scott and Jean's little angel?" she scoffed. "Don't think so." Scooter -- his real name was Nate, but everyone called him Scooter -- almost *never* did anything wrong. Rogue attributed his freakishly good behavior to the fact that his mother was a psychic and a telekinetic. Hard to get away with little kid shenanigans when your mom can hear what you're thinking and stop you in your tracks.

Logan didn't seem convinced. In fact, he was bordering on offended that Rogue had dared to suspect their angelic child. "It can't always be Joey's fault, Marie."

Typical. Logan was utterly blind when it came to Joey. Hands on her hips, Rogue countered with, "The week after you tossed Scott off the second floor balcony, Joey dared Scooter to jump off the roof."

Logan gave a derisive snort. "First of all, I tossed Scott into the *pool*. Second, the stupid kid should've known better than to jump off of the roof," he grumbled.

"Not the point," Rogue answered, irritation ringing loud and clear in her voice. Sometimes her husband could be absolutely impossible.

"And third, Jean caught Scooter," Logan pointed out reasonably. "No harm, no foul."

Rogue threw her hands into the air. "There was no harm because Jean just happened to wander outside at the precise moment her son hurled himself off of the roof at the urging of *your* child!"

Logan snorted. "*Our* child."

"Joey shares some of your particularly challenging qualities," Rogue countered. "Which is hardly the point. Children imitate their parents," Rogue said. "You need to be more careful about what you do and say around Joey."

Logan actually looked offended. "I'm a damn good father."

Softening, Rogue reached up and slid an affectionate hand down Logan's jawline. "You are, sugar. Really. We just have to be careful around Joey. Our child is turning into quite a little hellion."

"Hellion?" Logan echoed skeptically. "That's a little strong, Marie."

"Who do you think stole two bottles of beer and hid them in Scooter's closet?"

"Joey's five," Logan said. "Little young for beer guzzling."

"Scooter's seven," Rogue countered. "Do you really think he's sitting around drinking beer in his closet? Who do you think *found* the beer and told his mommy in the first place?"

Logan crossed his arms and muttered, "Little tattletale."

"Logan." Sometimes he was as bad as Joey.

"Maybe Scott's little angel is trying to get Joey in trouble," Logan suggested, glaring momentarily in the direction of the Summers' suite.

Rogue resisted the urge to smack him on the forehead. "I rest my case: They're imitating their parents. Joey's fascinated by your claws. Who else would do this?" she demanded, gesturing wildly at the couch.

Logan shook his head, unconvinced. "Why would Joey cut up a couch?"

"I don't know, but maybe we should concentrate on why Joey was playing with a *knife*."

That certainly got Logan moving. Even the thought of little Joey in danger brought out Logan's fiercest protective behavior.

Still muttering to herself about impossible husbands and uncontrollable children, Rogue followed Logan back up to their suite, where Joey was fast asleep. The room was tastefully decorated -- no woodland creatures or cartoon characters. Just soothing yellow walls and small-scale, blonde wood furniture -- some of which Logan had made by hand.

In three long strides, Logan crossed to Joey's bed and knelt down beside it, gently pulling the covers down to reveal their daughter's curly brown locks. "Joey?" Logan whispered. "Joey, wake up for a second."

With a hand on Logan's shoulder, Rogue sat on the edge of the bed. "Sugar, wake up and talk to us."

Slowly, Joey's big hazel eyes opened and blinked sleepily up at them. "Mommy? Daddy?"

"Yeah, kid, we need to ask you a question," Logan answered.

Rogue stifled a grin as Joey stared up at her father with those innocent hazel eyes. She may have been only five years old, but Josephine was already a master at exploiting her father's soft spots. Anyone who judged Logan purely by his badass reputation would never expect him to be a total pushover for his daughter, but he was, and it was a side of her husband that tickled Rogue to no end. Even if it meant their daughter would automatically run to daddy for a second opinion whenever mommy said no.

Rogue leaned back, watching with interest as Joey reached up and tugged on Logan's hair. The little girl giggled, her cheeks flushing with excitement. "Your hair's pointy again, daddy."

Logan and Rogue exchanged amused looks. Rogue leaned down and pressed a fleeting kiss to Joey's tiny forehead. "Yes, daddy looks silly, huh?"

Covering her laughter with her hands, Joey nodded vigorously. She was awake enough to sit up now, pulling her stuffed blue Care Bear ("It looks like Uncle Hank!") closer. She reached up and patted Rogue's hair. "Can I get stripes in my hair yet?"

The age-old argument. Joey was fascinated by the white streaks in Rogue's hair and wanted her own. Some days, she wanted bright purple streaks instead of just plain white. Rogue trotted out the usual answer: "When you're older. Listen, sugar, we need to ask you a question."

Noting their serious tone, Joey sat up a little straighter, carefully placing the blue Care Bear at attention beside her. "What?"

"Remember how we talked about telling the truth?" Logan prompted. Joey nodded, her tangled curls falling over one shoulder. Gently, Logan reached out and smoothed his daughter's hair back away from her face. "Do you know anything about the cuts in the black leather couch downstairs?"

Joey looked back and forth between her parents. Logan lifted an eyebrow, which Joey was smart enough to recognize as impatience. She ducked her chin. "Yes."

"Yes?" Logan repeated, a little incredulously.

Rogue rolled her eyes. Her husband thought Joey was the personification of sweetness and light. Rogue had no idea why, since neither of Joey's parents could be described as particularly tame. "Did you cut the couch, Josephine?" Rogue asked.

Joey kept her chin down, but glanced up at her mother. "It was an accident," she whispered.

Logan let his breath out in a whoosh and gave Rogue a truly obnoxious look. "An accident," he repeated, in case his wife had missed that. She was sure that if he'd been close enough, he would've elbowed her, too.

Rogue wasn't impressed. "What kind of accident?"

"Me and Scooter were playing X-Men," Joey answered softly.

"Scooter and I," Rogue corrected.

"You were playing with Scooter?" Logan asked. Rogue reached out and smacked his arm for using that particular tone of voice. "Sorry," he muttered, adopting a falsely cheerful tone to repeat his question: "You were playing with Scooter?"

"Playing X-Men," Joey confirmed.

The idea was adorable, but Rogue didn't trust her daughter to come up with some innocuous version of 'playing X-Men.' This was the girl who, at four, tried to convince Scooter to be a human bridge over one of the small streams on the property. Face down in the stream. So that she could *literally* walk all over him. "Were you dressed up like the X-Men?" Rogue asked.

Joey nodded emphatically. "Scooter made a cape and I put on my jeans." She pointed with one chubby little finger to the small chair in the corner where her discarded jeans were crumpled in a heap.

Rogue squinted, trying to make the connection between the outfits and the X-Men. "A cape? Was Scooter being Storm?"

"No!" Joey scrunched up her nose. "Scooter's a *boy*, and Storm's a *girl.* Scooter was being Magneto and I was being Daddy."

Rogue bit down hard on her bottom lip when Logan's chest actually puffed up with pride. The man was such an idiot sometimes. Because while all he heard was that his daughter adored him, Rogue inferred that her daughter had chased Scooter around the Mansion with a knife. "How were you *being* Daddy?"

"Scooter had paper clips and he was throwing them at me, so I got some claws--"

"You what?" Logan yelled. Finally, Rogue thought, the man catches a clue. "Whaddya mean, claws?"

Joey started to move, wriggling out from under her covers and kneeling beside her pillow. She reached underneath and came out with not one, but *three* steak knives clutched in her small hand.

"Joey!" Logan shouted. "What the--"

"Logan," Rogue yelped. Because their knife-wielding daughter really didn't need to add "fuck" to her vocabulary. She was already a five-year-old badass.

"Right," Logan growled, reaching for the knives.

Rogue placed one hand over her husband's. "Just a second." She turned to her daughter. "Joey, can you show me how you were being daddy? Show me *carefully*."

Grinning, Joey took the three knives and put one between each of her fingers on her right hand, then made the best fist she could. Eyes sparkling, she looked up at her parents for approval. "Grrrrrr," she said. "See? Just like Daddy."

A little clumsily, Joey lifted her claws and began to swipe them through the air. Logan intervened, capturing his daughter's hand in his much larger ones. "Okay," he said, easily disarming her. "I think that's about enough of *being* Daddy."

Joey looked up at her father's disapproving _expression, her lower lip starting to tremble. "I'm sorry, Daddy," she whispered. "I just wanted to be like you."

Whatever panic-fueled anger Logan had been feeling was obviously swept away with Joey's confession. Handing the knives off to Rogue, he reached up and snagged his daughter, settling her on his lap. They really were cute enough to send Rogue into sugar shock. Or some sort of laughing fit. Could go either way, really.

Rogue tasted blood and gingerly released her injured lip from her teeth. Joey's makeshift claws were a pretty good imitation of her father's, except that Joey was *five* and probably shouldn't have access to steak knives. "Joey. Sugar. Where did you find these knives?"

Joey gave her mother what could only be described as an exasperated look. "In the kitchen."

Logan actually smirked at Rogue over Joey's head. "Seems logical."

Rogue ignored her husband. "Joey, you can't play with knives any more. You saw what happened to the couch, right?" Joey nodded. "You wouldn't want that to happen to anyone, would you?"

"Not even precious little Scooter," Logan interjected dryly.

"Logan," Rogue chastised through gritted teeth. "What did I tell you about watching your behavior?"

"I thought it was *our* behavior?" he tossed back with his best charming grin. She glared back, unimpressed. Logan shrugged and turned his attention back to the little girl in his arms. "When you're old enough, I'll teach you how to handle weapons. Now promise me you won't play with knives."

Joey stuck out her lower lip. "But, Daddy--"

"No buts, kid," Logan interrupted gruffly. He was frowning and looking very fierce and Rogue could tell he was about two seconds away from cracking -- Joey's pout always got him.

Rogue leaned down to capture her daughter's attention. "You wouldn't want to disappoint your father, would you?"

Joey looked horrified at the very thought. "No."

"Okay, then," Rogue said. "Promise us you won't play with knives anymore."

"I promise," Joey said.

But Rogue had learned the hard way that Joey took things very literally. "What do you promise?" she prompted.

With a hearty sigh, Joey answered, "I promise not to play with knives." She looked up at her father and said very seriously, "That's no fun, Daddy."

Laughing, Logan lifted her back into bed. "Go to sleep, kid."

"But I'm awake now," she pointed out reasonably.

"Lie down, sugar," Rogue murmured, tucking her daughter back in under the covers. "Now close your eyes."

Pouting, Joey obeyed. "I'm still not tired," she declared.

Rogue glanced over at her husband, who was giving her that familiar "your daughter gets that trait from *you*" look. Logan claimed that Rogue was the most stubborn woman he'd ever met, and no wonder their daughter never, ever backed down from anything. To which she normally replied with some variation of a pot/kettle joke and a reference to how damn long it took him to admit Rogue was an adult and more than willing.

"Be good," Rogue said, "and maybe Daddy will tell you a story."

"Oh!" Joey yelped, eyes wide open again, clapping madly. "Story!"

Logan groaned. "I already told you a story tonight, kid."

"Tell me about the time when you beat Magneto!" Joey begged. "Please, Daddy? Please?"

Rogue curled up on Joey's small bed, tossing an arm over her daughter's midsection to keep her horizontal. She propped herself up on her other elbow and gave her husband a smirk. "You beat Magneto and you didn't tell me about it?"

Glowering quite impressively, Logan crossed his arms and shook his head. "No more stories."

"Pleeeeeeeease?" Joey begged.

Rogue didn't even bother to start any sort of countdown; Logan crumbled immediately.

"All right, all right," he muttered. "Settle down, kid. Close your eyes." He waited, arms crossed, until she complied. "Good girl." He glanced at Rogue, a tiny frown in place.

Rogue grinned at her husband over Joey's tiny head, not giving an inch. She knew perfectly well he felt stupid telling bedtime stories with an audience. Sometimes she wished she had a video camera, because Scott would pay some serious cash for a tape of Logan telling bedtime stories about Magneto.

Logan paused to give Rogue an intimidating glare. She grinned back at him and settled in to listen. "Yes, Logan. Tell us a story."

With a long-suffering sigh, Logan obeyed. "So I was fighting Magneto..."

THE END

End Notes: This story has no redeeming value whatsoever, and suffers from many if not most of the faults of your typical babyfic. And yet the image of a tiny, curly haired daughter of Logan's using three steak knives as claws wedged its way into my consciousness and wouldn't leave. Sorry, Devil Doll, I have indeed committed babyfic. Heehee.