Rogue slipped silently along the narrow ledge surrounding the board room Friends of Humanity had selected as its latest meeting place. In the darkness, the cool, crisp New England fall weather chapped her cheeks. She knew from experience that for the next several days her cheeks would glow pink in the soft afternoon sunlight. Frowning, she grimaced at the lecture she would get from Logan for failing to protect her skin. Little did Logan know it actually made her feel more human and less mutant when her invulnerable skin managed to be altered by something as simple as cold air.

Accessing Ms. Marvel’s powers, she floated several inches above the ledge, insuring that her boots didn’t alert those whom she was listening to. The Friends of Humanity were a radical mutant hate group led by the son of Sabretooth, Graydon Creed. Rumor had it that Sabretooth was actually Wolverine’s father, which would subsequently make Graydon his half-brother. She’d never forget that particular X-Men debriefing. The cold Molson Logan had spit three feet across the game room and his shocked and horrified face were enough to entertain her over and over again when she was at her most bored.

Recently, mutant hate crimes had increased around Westchester. Wolverine, with the help of Charles and Cyclops, had mapped each attack on a topographical grid surrounding the mansion. The red dots formed circles like the rings on a fallen tree. The circles grew smaller and smaller as they got closer and closer to the mansion. The mansion, conspicuously enough, was in the perfect center.

It was blatantly obvious the FoH was planning to mount an attack, but with powerful mutants like Xavier, Cyclops, Wolverine, and Storm calling the residence home, as well as the plethora of dangerously lethal mutant children running around, it was a desperate move at best. Xavier worried that Graydon may have some sort of secret weapon he was planning to employ against the X-Men. Wolverine-in-her-head had desperately hoped it was a Sentinel. Nothing beat the pants off of a Sentinel like adamantium slicing through it’s thick noggin, and that, the Wolverine had purred, was an afternoon well spent.

Of course, Wolverine also considered afternoons well spent those in which he managed to yank Rogue’s clothing off abruptly and dump her into his king sized bed. Images of yesterday afternoon vividly came to mind. Logan peeling her worn t-shirt and jeans off, piling them on the floor and growling in approval at her lack of undergarments. Logan, nibbling from her toes, to her knees, to her thighs...Logan’s chest, her fingertips splayed against it, dragging long scratches down his toned back as he rocked steadily into her, lips devouring her neck and breasts...Logan demanding she say his name when she...

“You alright, kid?” a gruff growl snarled from the edge of the balcony overhang. Wolverine crouched there, hair wild from the winds atop the high rise hotel.

Rogue jumped, sucking in a startled scream. Blushing profusely, she rested her hand lightly on the stuccoed wall outside the board room’s windows to steady her racing heart. She barely made eye contact with Wolverine as he smirked devilishly, a sharp, feral fang peeking from the corner of his rakish smile as he scented the wind. His black X-Men uniform hugged all of him tightly, and he winked at her as she bit the edge of her lip from trying not to groan at the sight of his ass caressed by soft leather.

“Like whatcha see?” his voice growled in her ear, teeth nibbling gently along the edge of her ear lobe.

“Shut the fuck up, Logan.” she hissed.

“Wanna find Graydon Creed’s bedroom and...” he continued, his breath hot on her neck

“LOGAN!” a disturbed voice growled over the communication link in Rogue’s ear, “DO YOU MIND?!”

“Sorry, Scooter.” Wolverine chuckled.

“We gonna do this, or what?” she whispered, sliding down further along the ledge. “We don’t have all day.”

“Yeah, yeah sure, don’t rush me!” he scolded softly. “I've been doing this a lot longer than you, you know.”

Rolling her eyes, Rogue reached into a pouch on her belt to produce several of the tiny, robotic listening bugs that Beast had formulated in his free time. It looked almost exactly like a fly, but contained a high powered, miniscule camera and microphone which streamed a live feed via satellite back to the mansion. Nightcrawler had recently hinted that the reason Beast was so wealthy was not because he was a doctor, but because he had sold this technology to the military some time back.

Talk about a lucrative business.

The lights dimmed as the meeting came to an end, the men and women who chaired FoH standing, shaking hands, and exiting the room swiftly and silently. Checking her countdown of five minutes, Rogue summoned Shadowcat to the forefront of her mind and slid through the wall like a hot knife through butter. Wolverine stood outside the window as a body guard, body vibrating with his soft growls. If he had it his way, Rogue was pretty sure she’d be barefoot and pregnant, comfortably protected at the mansion where no harm could come to her.

She quickly and silently placed the bugs around the room, watching them remotely sit up and fly away to hide in various locations: under chairs, in ceiling tiles and air vents, as well as inside the blindingly fluorescent lighting. A sudden movement made her step back as a member of FoH suddenly sat up from behind the massive council’s desk that stretched across the front of the room.

“What the...?” he hissed, then let out a violent yell of “MUTANT!” sure to bring every participant in the meeting back, double time. From beneath the desk he pulled a lever action rifle and aimed it at Rogue.

The sound of pounding feet running towards the situation from down the hall was accompanied by that of shattering glass as the Wolverine barreled into the room, claws outstretched, a guttural, angry roar declaring his murderous intent.

Marie turning, distracted, to glance at Wolverine, gasped when the FoH extremist fired the gun. The slug slammed into the soft place where her collarbone and neck collided. Instead of injuring her, the slug collapsed, releasing a noxious, potent drug cocktail into the air. She inhaled deeply, and it darted from her lungs to her bloodstream, flooding her body.

Choking and gagging, her eyes rolled back into her head and her body dropped like a rag doll onto the multi-patterned, cheap carpet that was wall to wall common in this hotel.

-------

All Logan saw was Marie falling, falling, falling, into a heap on the floor. On the way down, it looked as if she had disappeared from inside her own uniform with a flash of smoke. Something hit the floor with a loud thunk, and Logan’s unsheathed claws ran the FoH shooter through violently. Then, he ran towards the board room doors. Borrowing on adrenaline, he shoved the entire board room table against them, blocking them from the inside. Turning, he gulped back something that felt suspiciously like a sob as he approached the bundle of clothes where his, HIS sweet girl had just stood.


Her scent had not disappeared, it just seemed, muted somehow. Oblivious to FoH trying to ram the door down, he sheathed one set of claws and let his rough fingers slide through the leather uniform, encountering only a strange bump at the bottom.

He prodded the bundle, and a soft wail suddenly erupted into the room, the sound of a baby crying made Logan’s ears shriek in protest. The door gave way, cracking all the way down the middle. Not knowing what to do, he grasped the bundle tightly, and dove from the building, one set of claws dragging down the exterior wall with a fierce grating noise to slow his descent.

Reaching the bottom of the building, Logan dug through the clothes, desperate for some sign of Marie. Instead, he was greeted with a child’s giggle as he unzipped the suit. There, laying amidst the black leather, was a tiny baby.

His dog tags were gently wrapped around its neck.

Marie’s two platinum streaks of hair faintly showed through the edges of light brown, thin baby hair.

“Marie?” Logan asked, one eyebrow raised.

In response, the baby giggled and tugged on his hair playfully. Super strength ripped a chunk of it from his head.

“Fuck! Marie?” he asked again, and her laughter, sweet as wild bluebells, burst forth as his healing factor reversed the damage done to his scalp.

Shouts and gunshots ricocheted loudly into the air behind him. He grabbed the baby, Marie or not, and tore into the nearest woods looking for the rendezvous point he and Scooter had established earlier.

“Well, that’s interesting.” Hank muttered as he toddled around his lab at what Logan had deemed an excruciatingly slow pace. They’d already been there for ten minutes for chrissakes! Marie, or what he thought, was Marie, at least it smelled like her, was making googly faces in what looked like a blanket lined, clear piece of tupperware from the kitchen.

“Look, bu..Doc, I really need you to fix this.” Logan snarled. His leather uniform was tattered, a piece of twig from a tree and leaves from several different bushes and various aboreal verdancy had turned his wayward hair into a birds nest.

“This takes robbing the cradle to a whole new level,” Scooter snickered from where he leaned casually against the nearest gurney.

“Fuck you.” Logan growled, two middle claws sliding out with a ‘snikt!’ to gesture vaguely in Scott’s general direction.

“Well, this is most definitely the Rogue.” Hank muttered, glancing at a DNA profile hovering on a clear, holographic touchscreen. “It’s an exact DNA match.” he explained to Logan, who had stepped, claws still extended, to stand directly behind Hank.

“What the hell happened to her?” he snarled, hot breath fogging Hank’s glasses as he turned to face Logan.

Hank stepped back, disconcerted, then went to check on a machine that was busily chugging out paper results onto a nearby table. “According to blood results, the compound Friends of Humanity is using is some sort of anti-aging compound. Perhaps instead of anti-aging, it results in age reversal?”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Logan hissed, gesturing at the baby where a fully grown woman should have been. “What the hell do you suppose we do about it?”

“Well, I’m assuming that the compound is either temporary, or permanent.” Hank said, glancing at the readouts again as his spectacles slid down his nose.

“Permanent?!” Adamantium fists slammed into the nearest gurney, crumpling its metal hand rails.

“Logan, that is not necessary.” Hank chided, “By permanent I only mean that it may reverse aging to the point that it must once again progress...naturally.”

“Are you kidding me Hank?” Scott interjected, “Logan could barely wait until she was 18 years old before he jumped her bones. You think he can wait another 18? Talk about blue balls and jailbait.”

The world swam around Logan, and he sat down, hard on the gurney. Hank grimaced, then smiled when he realized that it was actually the gurney he had had reinforced for both Wolverine and Colossus’s weight. Medical expenses tended to be fairly extravagant around the mansion, and one never knew when such a gurney would be needed.

Like now, of course.

“What’s the best case scenario? You think those FoH fuckers have the reversal?” Logan whispered, shell shocked.

“According to the mass spectrometer, given the short-term half-life of some of the chemicals used in the compound, I would make a better educated guess that this effect will last no more than two weeks.” Hank explained.

“Two weeks? What do we do until then?” Scott asked.

Hank frowned, scratched his fur, then said, “Well, I think we should find out who she is most comfortable with, and then let them babysit.”

“Babysit?!” the two men growled at the same time.

“All of the girls are out of town for that stupid retreat this weekend!” Scott grumbled, “Are we supposed to take turns?”

“Ain’t no way in hell you’re touching my Marie.” Logan hissed, hackles raising. “That’s my baby, not yours.”

“I wasn’t under the impression that you had any children, Logan.” Xavier’s voice said, following the creak of his motorized wheelchair.

“Look, I ain’t saying that there aren’t any brats looking like me running around between Cancun and Juno, but this is Marie we’re talking about here! She’s not my baby literally, she’s my baby, my companero, the yin to my yang... got it bub?” Logan groused.

Xavier smiled slightly, “It’s called a joke, Logan.” he supplied, then rolled towards the tupperware baby cradle.

“Some joke.” Logan huffed, “You wanna joke? A blonde, a brunette, and a red head walk into a bar...”

“Crass humor will not help in this situation, Logan.” Xavier continued, “But that particular punch line is quite amusing.”

“Fucking telepaths take the fun out of everything.” Logan snarled, frowning.

Xavier’s fingertips hovered over baby Marie’s temples, his eyes shut in concentration. A small smile spread across his face.

“This is indeed our Rogue. In fact, all of her powers are intact.” Xavier began, then cautioned, “However, I would avoid direct touch, I cannot discern if her power to touch continues to be deactivated.”

“So we’ve got a super strong baby that can fly and summon the powers of at least a dozen mutants?” asked Logan.

“It would seem that way, yes.” Xavier replied.

“Sonufabitch.” Logan mumbled, stepping closer to the tiny, bundled up baby. “Wanna come chill with me, kid?”

Marie’s little, chubby fingers reached upwards, clenching open and shut. Logan leaned one hand into the cradle, and she caught his fingertip. “Aww, Marie, you know who I a...WHOO! What is that smell?”

“Well, Logan, that would be the smell of just desserts.” Scott replied with a shit-eating grin.

Confused, Logan looked from Hank, to Xavier, to Scott.

“Diaper duty, Logan.” Hank supplied. “Unfortunately we only have cloth diapers at the moment. I’m afraid you’ll have to go buy some today, as well as baby formula, diaper powder...why don’t I just make you a list?” Hank prattled.

“Sure, sounds great.” Logan replied, smiling slightly when Marie grabbed his finger. He was unprepared, however, for the sick snap that followed her squeezing and tugging on it eagerly.

“Did she just break your finger?” Scott whimpered.

“I think so.” Logan grunted through blinding pain, “Just ‘effin great, gotta baby sit infant she-Hulk.” he said, directing the comment towards the tiny bundle that yawned and gave a toothless grin in his direction.

Marie, in response, laughed, then screwed her little face up in concentration.

“What’s going on now?” Logan asked, much to his chagrin.

“I think your diaper duty just got bigger.” Scott replied, snarkily, then ducked out of the room, followed by Hank and Xavier.

“If you need anything, let us know!” Hank chortled.

“Well, looks like it’s just you and me kid.” Logan huffed, trying to be good humored. He reached down and picked Marie up, planning on changing her diaper on the gurney. As he lifted Marie above his head, she smiled.

Then threw up in his face.

Logan frowned as he contemplated the fifteen foot mountain of diapers that towered over him, shades of pink, blue, and violet mixing together like bad cotton candy. A sharp tug on the shopping list in his fist along with the sound of tearing paper made him glance down at the cause of his predicament, dressed by Jubilee in an outfit she had been saving as a gag gift for the “inevitable day Marie was knocked up by mister tall dark and growly.” As such, the tiny black t-shirt read in blaring hot pink, “Mommy’s little Badass,” much to the Professor’s chagrin and Logan’s secret pleasure.

The matching black pants had hot pink flames running up and down the seams, and tiny hot pink booties kept Marie’s tiny toes warm in the crisp New England fall weather. He had asked Jubilee whether the outfit had a match made for little boys, and she had just grinned snarkily. Trust Jubilee to try to emasculate the future-infant-son of Wolverine with hot pink clothes.

One of Logan’s old ear warmers had been sliced down to size by adamantium claws and was perched precariously around Marie’s tufts of static-cling filled, baby soft hair. Unfortunately, the edges were slightly jagged, and Marie had received several scathing looks from other toddler and infant mothers in the store, whose babies were ensconced in monogrammed snowsuits and matching hats. Marie looked like a baby that had walked out of a danger room simulation.

Logan kinda liked it.

“Do you need any help?” a nosy voice inquired as Logan trailed fingers along plastic wrapped disposable diapers. Unbelievably caught unawares, he jumped, claws shooting out instinctively and stabbing into the jumbo pack of Sesame Street toddler big-boy whatsit pants.

“Aw, fuck.” He grumbled, the alarmed sales clerk who had startled him staring as he lifted the entire package, still skewered on his claws. “You gotta problem, bub?” he gestured, diaper fluff scattering throughout the aisle way.

“N…no, sir.” the clerk hemmed and hawed, then darted out of the aisle, little red jumper trailing in the breeze created by his speedy retreat.

Sheathing his claws, he drop kicked the diapers down the aisle, then turned back to Marie to try and get an estimate of what size diaper she’d need. She was an awfully petite little thing.

Marie was gone.

“Marie?” he whispered, looking around him frantically. “Marie, where the hell are you kid?”

A baby giggle made him look up. Marie was perched precariously on the top shelf of diapers, clapping her hands and chewing on what looked like a dead cockroach.

“Sonufabitch, kid! What the hell are you doing up there? ” Logan asked, scratching his head. “And get that the hell out of your mouth! You don’t know where it’s been!”

“What do you think you’re doing?!” a high-pitched shriek echoing from a mother behind him. “That baby is going to fall!”

“Lady, fer Chrissakes, she’ll be fi…” Logan began, then gasped as Marie, a shocked expression on her face, did indeed fall towards the floor.

He dove for her, but right before she hit hard linoleum, her eyes screwed up and with a ‘bamf!’ she disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke.

“I’m going to kill Kurt!” Logan growled.

Who had said they could play with Marie this morning without gloves on? The Professor.

“Too little to do any permanent damage or absorb additional powers my ass…” he hissed, shoving his shopping cart out of the way. The force of the cart hitting the shelf made it wibble-wobble ominously, and suddenly, it was raining diapers, baby formula, and aloe-vera-wet-wipes.

The other shoppers on the aisle scattered, screaming, as management came thundering from the front of the store to see what had caused the disturbance. Logan’s spiked hair and nose barely protrude from the mound of baby supplies he was now swimming in.

With another ‘bamf!’ Baby Marie appeared again, this time, floating upside down and halfway inside and outside of a package of diapers.

“Kitty!” Logan growled, mentally adding another mutant to his skewer list.

“There’s half a baby in that bag of diapers!” the first manager on the scene yelled.

Logan could smell his body odor masked with half an aerosol deodorant spray can. Baby Marie, wrinkled up her nose too, agreeing with Logan, then let out a shriek that dropped everyone in the store flat on the floor.

Logan felt his eardrums rupture and blood trickled out of his nose. “SIREN!” he yelled, barely audible over the piercing shriek. What the fuck was that kid thinking?! Now he was stuck with the loudest damn baby on earth.

“Marie, Marie, hey hey hey!” he whistled, hands flailing in front of her face as he waded through the diaper pile.

Brain liquefying slowly, he crept closer to her, fiddling in his pockets for something, anything to make her shut up. At the bottom of the pile they were buried alive in, an unopened pacifier with a Disney princess on it glimmered like a beacon of hope.

Ripping it open, he shoved it in Marie’s mouth.

The screaming stopped, and Marie popped out of the bag of diaper’s to float like a little angel. Glancing at her, Logan groaned, her pants and diaper were missing.

Snatching Marie up, he hefted her underneath one arm tightly, popped the claws, and ripped open the nearest bag of three to six month diapers. Not caring that small superheroes frolicked on them, he quickly covered Marie’s privates, caging the beast before it could erupt like Mount Vesuvius and wipe out the entire store. Dragging them out of the tidal wave of baby stuff, Logan found his cart visiting the tropical flavored spiral contraceptives.

“Whore-cart.” He growled, and hauled it back, one wheel squeaking and wobbling irritatingly, towards the mountain of baby goodies, Marie still dangling under one arm.

“Don’t even think about getting away, darlin’.” He snarled, blood drying on his upper lip and down his sideburns. Marie grinned toothlessly behind her pacifier and clapped her hands. This was fun, apparently.

“Well, fuck my life.” Logan growled.

Ignoring the shocked management, he chunked six of everything into the cart until it towered above his head, diapers, formula, baby food, jingly key rings, a stuffed bear and its buddies, and teething rings wobbling as he gingerly sat Marie in the baby seat.

With a clink, she turned to solid metal and the cart bent, almost unable to hold her weight.

“Colossus…” Logan snarled, fists trembling. There weren’t going to be a lot of x-men remaining when he got through with them this evening.

Pushing the unbelievably heavy baby and goods to the check out counter trailed by at least forty curious onlookers and wannabe paparazzi scraped at Logan’s already thin patience. A bottle of 80 proof wild turkey and Captain Morgan rum were the first things he slapped onto the conveyor belt as Marie began changing back from metal to blue and furry, then to metal, then to human, then to blue and furry all over again, giggling and clapping away as she changed.

“Thank God Mystique is nowhere near here.” Logan whispered as the cashier loaded up three carts with what he’d managed to squeeze into one. He couldn’t stand to see a baby Magneto. Now that would be fugly. Turning to Marie, he saw her face screwing up angrily. Attempting to prevent another siren call from killing any poor mortal close enough to hear, he covered his face with his hands, squealing in an uncharacteristically high Wolverine voice, “Peek-a-boo!” as he pulled them away.

Marie laughed, and Logan smiled, her giggles soothing his frayed nerves.

Then she tried to peek-a-boo him.

She pulled her hands away, and a blast of Cyclops’s eye beam left him bald and eyebrow-less.

“SONOFABITCH! SCOOTER!” Logan howled.

Outside, protected from the chaos inside the sliding glass doors, Scott and Hank sat, huddled in a black SUV parked on the curb. Scott jumped, then shivered.

"Someone walking over your grave?" Hank asked, teasingly.

Still chilled, Scott asked,“What’s taking him so long? He was just going in to get a few little items wasn’t he? Should we go check on him?”

“No, I’m sure he’s fine.” Hank said, filing his nails casually.

Scott stared as screaming people began running out of the Wal-Mart in droves, some steaming and on fire.

“Uh, Hank?”

“Yes, Scott?” he asked, exasperated.

A child protective services van had pulled up onto the curb and several navy suited men were attempting to approach a literally steaming, burnt, hairless Wolverine whose claws were extended menacingly, three carts of goods trailing behind him. This was not going to be good.

Scott and Hank covered their eyes. The sound of hissing air, screaming social workers, popping tires, and screeching metal lasted for approximately thirty seconds. Eerie quiet settled in, until the trunk was wrenched open.

“Next time,” eyebrow-less Wolverine snarled from the back of the car, baby Marie patting his bald head from her perch on his shoulders, “We’re buying all this shit from Amazon!”

The black SUV containing a singed ‘n’ crispy Wolverine, a baby Marie, a scared Scott, and an exhausted Hank pulled through the mansion’s gated entry way. Logan, now in a particularly growly mood, had held cranky baby Marie the entire trip, bouncing her up and down on adamantium knees and playing “ride the horsey.”

“Marie, Marie,” Logan had said in a sing-song voice, “Ride that horsey, ride it to town, baby let go, baby fall doooowwwwnnn!”

Unfortunately for Scott’s new iPhone, the minute he had attempted to record Logan playing with Marie, a claw had skewered the device and flung it from the moving vehicle. Scott wasn’t sure that death-by-mutant was covered in his warranty, but he wanted to check as soon as they were inside nonetheless.

Someone (Scooter, Logan’s inner voice snarled) had also decided that it was prudent to introduce baby Marie to ice cream as they stopped through a drive-thru to appease Logan’s desire for killing something by feeding him copious amounts of red meat. (Eating cheeseburgers, was theoretically, in Hank’s mind, the same as murdering large amounts of mutant students) Consequently, now Logan was stuck with a baby covered in ice cream, vomit due to Marie’s infantile lactose intolerance, and shredded bits of paper napkin and plastic spoon that had stuck to the stickiest bits. It looked like he had left with a baby, and returned with one of those damn critters from that Wild Things movie Marie had dragged him to last month.

Growling loudly, he shoved Scooter out of his way and stomped up the steps that led from the garage into the house. Catching a glimpse of Jubilee’s hideous coat from the corner of his eye, he chucked Marie at her and stormed into the kitchen. Pressing a finger onto the genetically keyed freezer that contained Xavier’s particularly expensive alcohol collection, he poured himself two glasses of brandy and two fingers of Scotch, then chased them with a shooter of Everclear.

Smacking his now numb lips together, Logan placed his head on his hands and rubbed his temples as Jubilee marched into the kitchen, holding Marie at an arm’s length.

“What the hell Logan!” she yelled, “You’ve ruined her outfit.”

Hearing no response from the practically catatonic Wolverine, she poked him in the ribs, huffing, and decided to bitch him out whenever he came to. Marie looked like a tornado in a trailer park, bits of shrapnel from a plastic silverware explosion stuck to her nose and ears. Her two-toned hair was sticking straight up in a baby-mohawk, and something that smelled like sour milk obscured the phrase on her shirt so that it now read, “Mommy’s little ass.”

“Well, since you’re filthy,” Jubilee said thoughtfully, “I might as well feed you something healthy, how about it kid?”

Marie giggled, and Jubilee tapped a bare finger on her little button nose. “Hang on kid, I think we’ve got leftover pancakes AND spaghetti in here.”

After securing Marie firmly in a booster seat at one of the chair-backed stools underneath the bar, Jubilee fished out the respective dishes and warmed them up. Jubilee zoomed a metal spoon towards Marie’s mouth, making airplane noises as she went.

"Open up the hangar little Marie, pancakes coming in to land!" Jubilee said cheerily.

Marie smacked her gums together, enjoying the savory flavor of maple syrup mixed with spaghetti sauce. Patting her little fat hands on the tray, she was also pleased to find that it was also sticky.

What’s a baby to do?

Jubilee stared in horror as Marie squished her entire face into the pancakes and spaghetti, smacking her hands aimlessly in the air, superstrength sending gobs of meatballs up to hit the antiqued tin ceiling. When she emerged, she stuck her tongue out and let out a blood curdling scream of delight. Spaghetti dripped from her hair like the heads of a medusa, red sauce had dyed her white streaks orange. Syrup permanently cemented the silverware shrapnel, and wadded her hair up into almost impossibly tangled knots.

The scream, however, had done what Jubilee could not. A snarly Wolverine appeared in her peripheral vision, superfast metabolism and healing factor resulting in a perfectly sober, but slightly hung over, Logan.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he growled, staring at Marie in dismay. “Holee shit! It looks like you let her in the danger room, with Magneto, at Golden Corral!”

Jubilee was absolutely speechless at Logan’s outburst. She was even more speechless when he pulled off his navy blue hoodie and wife beater, revealing oodles of muscles that rippled delightfully in the afternoon sunlight that trickled through the wooden kitchen blinds. Picking up the sticky baby, he stalked out of the room.

“Enough syrup on her that skin contact wouldn’t even matter...,” Logan hissed. Children dodged out of his way as he turned up the third flight of stairs and into the teacher’s wing. Opening his and Marie’s private, sound proofed suite, he jerked a shamwow from the pile of baby goodies that had been transported from the car to their room.

Frowning at it, he lifted one non-existant eyebrow quizzically. Who knew they sold shamwows in the baby section?

Ripping open the packaging, Logan wrapped sticky Marie in it, then tucked her under one arm as he found the contraption for bathing babies that Xavier had put an image of in his brain before the shopping trip. Lifting it out, he tossed the instructions into the nearest trashcan. Walking into the bathroom, he settled Marie, who was blowing spit bubbles contentedly, on his hip.

Looking like a Mr. Mom out of any Baby ‘R’ Us catalog, he ran the water to a little hotter than luke warm, then settled the pre-assembled baby chair in the water. Jerking off his jeans and boots, he climbed into the massive four person tub and sat in the six inches of water. He made sure the chair was firmly suction cupped to the bottom of the bathtub, then shimmied Marie out of her ruined clothing.

Or attempted to shimmy.

There was so much syrup soaked into the fabric that it was impossible to get the shirt or pants off over her head. Fuming silently, Logan slid one claw out a fraction of an inch, then sliced the outfit off of Marie. Holding her gently underneath her neck, he placed her in the baby bathtub.

Marie let out a little cry of surprise when the water touched her toes. Reaching for one of the soft wash cloths and the baby shampoo Marie kept in the basket next to the bathtub in case of an emergency, he gently began to soap up Marie’s hair and to de-stickify her skin.

Unfortunately for Logan, Marie did not approve of his methods. A fierce frown began to build on Marie’s face, her eyes scrunching up and her lips poking out in a pout. A tiny wail began to erupt from her mouth, and Logan, exhausted, balding, and almost to the point of crying out to Sabretooth to put him out of his misery, did what any young parent would do.

He picked up baby Marie and cradled her gently against his chest.

“It’s okay darlin’, it’s okay. It’s just water and soap, you even like this scent, remember?”

Marie’s cries died down softly, and he patted her back gently. Maybe she needed to burp. She had just eaten something incredibly heart burn inducing in any sane adult.

“BURP!”

“ZAPOW!”

Faster than Logan could anticipate, Marie did indeed burp.

Unfortunately, one of Jubilee’s lightning bolts accompanied that baby bodily function.

Electricity zoomed around the bathtub, up Logan’s adamantium bones, and rattled around his skull as his ears smoked and he bit through his own tongue. The lights of the mansion flickered uncontrollably, then went out. Marie giggled, invulnerable skin making her completely immune to the absorbed power.

Eyes rolling, Logan slumped against the edge of the bathtub, having managed to piss himself in the process of being removed from all human faculties by an infant. Marie patted his chest with her fat baby palms, then touched his slack jaw as his healing factor went into overdrive to compensate for the damage.

“Holee shit,” Logan gasped, hoarsely, as his heart finally began beating again and the mansion lights resumed their normal functions. Desperate to get out of the bathtub, he reached for the nearest towel, removed his pissed on boxers, and wrapped the white terry cloth around his waist.

Wrapping a baby blanket and a diaper on Marie in one fluid movement, Logan walked to the door to the suite and slammed it open, intent on murdering, or at least maiming, Jubilee. Scott stood there, broken iPhone in one hand and the mansion landline portable in the other. Logan could vaguely make out a genius bar consultant’s voice on the other line, “Mr. Summers, Mr. Summers?”

“What. The. Fuck. Do. You. Want.” Logan hissed, claws sliding out with a ‘snikt’ on the hand that didn’t hold Marie.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Scott replied, not even bothering to take the stairs in his haste to get away from Logan, he leaped over the third floor balcony and rolled as he hit the lobby’s travertine tile.

Glancing at the landline phone Scott had left, Logan reached down and gently hit the “end call” button. Suddenly exhausted, it was all he could do not to crawl to the bed, drop Marie into her basinet, and fall into a puddle of extremely tired mutant.

Killing Jubilation Lee would have to wait until tomorrow.

Logan could swear he’d only been asleep fifteen minutes when Marie’s first angry wail split the quiet humming of the mansion’s heat as it kicked on in the chilly New England fall weather.

Fumbling desperately for the sports watch he often left on his bedside table, he picked it up, bleary eyed, and squinted at the taunting digital letters than stared back at him, glowing red in the darkness.

2:30 A.M.

Son of a bitch.

Rolling over, he fell out of bed unexpectedly and hit his face on the heel of one of Marie’s combat boots laying in a pile of dirty clothes that he hadn’t taken to the laundry room as requested by his girlfriend.

Who happened to be raising holy hell in miniature on the other side of the room.

“Owwwww…” Logan groaned. Maybe if he just lay there and pretended to be dead Marie would hush.

No such luck. Marie just wailed louder.

Wiping blood from his nose and then dragging the back of his hand across his boxer shorts, Logan managed to right himself and stalked towards the baby bassinet. He gently placed one large, calloused palm behind Marie’s floppy little neck, the other supporting her back as he lifted her to lay on his bare chest.

Marie hiccupped, then quieted.

“It’s okay, little lady, I gotcha.” He murmured, stroking her back. He shifted her so that her little head was in the crook of his neck. So rearranged and at an optimal distance from Logan’s over sensitive ears, Marie promptly resumed crying.

Mentally going over his what-happens-if-Marie-cries-and-won’t-stop-crying checklist, Logan immediately began step one.

The baby dance.

This of course, involved a lot of little bounces as he walked, turned, pirouetted, and glided across the room. The baby dance, he had been assured by Hank, was a tried and true method of baby control perfected by mothers for thousands of years. Instead of making Marie stop crying, however, it just made her cry in little short bursts, each interrupted by a less loud shriek.

“Awahwah…uh…awahwah…uh…awahwah,” went Marie as Logan bounced. It sounded almost as comical as the time he caught Scooter talking to himself through an oscillating fan during a Danger Room simulation.

Except of course, that instead of hearing Scooter singing a song about how he liked to eat bananas, a baby’s ear splitting shriek looped infinitely in his ears.

Maybe he should baby dance harder?

Now practically hopping like a bunny, Logan continued to baby dance as he debated his next course of action. He even added in a hip swivel for good measure. Thinking back to his mental list, Logan attempted to catalog Marie’s crying. Marie was not crying like she was hungry, maybe diaper problems?

A quick lift-and-sniff check indicated that Marie could do with a fresh one.

Dancing her into the bathroom, Logan rolled out the yoga-mat looking thing he had purchased during his earlier, hellacious shopping trip that was apparently used for changing diapers onto the fluffy, multicolored rag rug he and Marie had purchased during a trip to Nantucket.

He laid Marie down and evaluated the package of diapers marked 6-7 months, mentally gauging Marie’s size versus the diaper he now held in his hands. Turning back around, he found Marie slightly wedged in between the bottom cabinet and the floor, where she had rolled in her temper tantrum. Little, pounding baby fists made tiny cracks and craters in the travertine tile floor, and Logan, not without difficult and subsequently losing a chunk of arm hair – upon which he cursed colorfully – un-wedged Marie and re-deposited her on the baby mat.

Grabbing her by the tiny ankles and jerking her upwards, Logan quickly sliced the diaper of her, tossed it in the trash, then positioned her, tongue slipping between lip and teeth in concentration, as he wiped, then powdered – to which both he and Marie sneezed horribly – and rediapered her as quick as any Nascar pit team.

Slightly proud of himself, Logan picked up his hiccupping baby and walked back towards the door. Once inside the room, he gently baby danced towards the bassinet, whereupon he shimmied Marie lower, and lower, until she rested in the soft cotton coverlet.

Tucking the light pastel baby blanket around her and laying a gentle, whiskery kiss on her forehead, he sighed and turned longingly to look at his bed.

Bed.

Ah.

Logan’s head hit the pillow, his ears still slightly ringing, and his eyes fluttered shut. God he was exhausted…

“AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Ohhhhhhh…” Logan groaned, pounding his fists into the mattress beneath him in silent protest, “When I catch those FoH fuckers they are going to pay for every damn second of this.”

Staggering out of bed once more, eyes bloodshot, Logan lifted Marie up into his arms again, then somehow slumped into his favorite, worn leather chair. Propping his feet up on the footstool, he gently swayed back and forth as Marie cried, hot wet tears dripping down his chest. One hand patted her back and held her close, the other cradled her baby-soft hair.

“Marie, please, baby, please.” Logan almost groaned, “Please, please go to sleep baby.”

Marie continued to cry.

God, what could be wrong with her? He had changed her, she was full, he had burped her, bathed her, what else could a baby need? Going over his mental list once more, Logan finally opened his mouth, and began to sing.

"Rockabye, and goodnight," he hummed.

Marie cried louder.

Maybe something different?

"Hush little baby, don't say a word, Logan's gonna buy you a Dodge Charger..."

"WAAAAAAAAHHHHH."

"Goddammit, a 1969 Marie, a 1969 Dodge Charger, not a new one, don't cry!" Logan growled, frustrated at himself, at Marie. What could this little ball of angst possibly want him to sing? He rattled his already rattled brains, finally coming upon one of Marie's favorites.

“If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?” he started, voice gravelly with lack of sleep, “For I must be traveling on now, Cause there’s many places I’ve got to see.”

Marie quieted slightly, and a tiny coo slipped from her lips.

Ah! Success!

Rocking back and forth, Logan continued, “But if I stayed here with you girl, things just couldn’t be the same.”

Marie cooed again, and this time she nuzzled into his chest. Her wet baby eyelashes fluttered slowly against his chest, and her breathing evened out.

Singing quieter, “Cause I’m as free as a bird now, and this bird you cannot change.”

Stroking her back, Logan felt her heartbeat slow into a steady, sleepy beat.

Peeking down warily, Logan smiled gently at the sleeping baby on his chest, her little face lit up by moonlight.

“G’night, M’rie.” Logan mumbled, leaning back into the comfortable place where the chair and its arm met, eyes fluttering shut.

Logan groaned in pain as his eyes somehow or another pried themselves open, early morning sunlight pounding into his retinas. His neck ached, as if he’d been sleeping sitting up all night.

Which, actually, he had been.

Wiggling his butt, which felt quite numb and sighing heavily, Logan reached towards his overly warm chest, sure that baby Marie needed a new diaper. In fact, he was surprised that she hadn’t made a peep before now. Didn’t Hank say it was weird for babies Marie’s age to sleep all the way through the night?

His hand met his own skin. A soft baby blanket covered his toned abs. But there was no baby.

No Marie.

Now wide awake, Logan jumped up, whirling around as he hoarsely cried out, “Marie? Marie?!”

Frantic, Logan crawled on the floor, looking under the bed, on the bed, under the dresser, in the dresser drawers, under the chair, in the bathroom, in the bathroom cabinets, on the ceiling, in the closet, and finding no Marie there either, he frenetically turned towards the bedroom door and reached to yank it open.

He stopped in his tracks.

There, stapled to the antique oak was a thin piece of white printer paper, a hastily scrawled, barely legible message awaiting his perusal.

‘Logan - If you want your baby back, bring a new iPhone to the Starbucks on Rosemont Dr. by 3:00PM, or you will never see her again.’

“An iPhone? What the hell is an iPhone?” Logan snarled, ripping the message off the door and storming into the hallway. Come hell or high water he was going to find his baby.

Monday morning signaled the return of the mansion’s students from their weekend hoopy-te-doo at Camp Onawana or whatever the fuck, Salute-your-Shorts shindig they’d been attending. One of them had to know what this iThingy was. Reaching out randomly, Logan snagged the first student within arm’s reach, slamming him up against the wall, his forearm in a chokehold against the kid’s neck.

“YOU!” he snarled, mentally proud when the little teal skinned, gilled boy automatically went pale and peed in his pants just a little bit.

“YessssirrrMrWolverinesir?” the mini-mutie stammered, hands shaking.

“What the hell is an iPhone?!” Logan shook the boy just a little for emphasis.

Glancing around, the kid pointed over into the shadowed hallway. Logan reached down and pulled out the slim, black, claw-fucked remains of whatever the hell that annoying noise making, text messaging machine Scott was “In a Relationship” with on that Friendbook, or Facebook, or whatever the fuck that thing was that Marie kept putting pictures of him in his sleep on when he wasn’t looking for the world to see.

“This is an iPhone,” fish-face said, “It’s got a big hole through it though.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Logan snarked, flipping the little gizmo over in his hands. He released the kid, then stalked away.

Cyke wanted to play dirty, huh?

He was about to learn that nobody played chicken with the Wolverine and fucking got away with it.

Sniffing the air, Logan smirked as he caught Jean’s scent wafting towards the medlab. Sneaking in the opposite direction, Logan popped a single claw and sliced through the lock on the door that led to Scott and Jean’s shared room.

Looking in the most obvious stash-place for naughty goods, Logan smirked broadly as he glanced underneath the bed to find a box of black-boxed DVDs.

Flipping through them quickly, Logan scanned the titles, then spread a shit-eating grin across his face as he came across one titled, “Little Bo Peep.”

“Wonder what that’s about,” he cackled, lifting it and two other promising looking titles, slipping back through the doorway, and heading back to his room for some R&R time with his Xbox.

---------

Scott tapped his foot nervously against the floor. Marie sat in a high chair next to him - on Jean’s suggestion he’d taken her to a baby boutique called Pea-in-a-Pod, told him he needed the practice.

Which of course, had led to the exposure of Jean’s well-kept secret, that she was, that they were pregnant. He had been exultant, she had done a silly dance. They’d hugged and kissed and laughed, and then she’d packed him up in the SUV for a day of practice Daddy-and-baby time.

However, he hadn’t told Jean that Logan hadn’t exactly given him permission to take Marie. Nor had he told her about the vaporized large game tranquilizer he’d injected into Logan’s arm as he plucked a sleeping Marie from his grasp.

Now he was worried that he wouldn’t live to be a father.

Maybe he should use Marie as a human shield?

Probably a good idea.

He lifted Marie, then strapped her into the Baby Bjorn hanging limply from his chest. A solid kick from her little heel connecting solidly with his solar-plexus made him gasp, “Oof!” She’d been hurting him all day without realizing it.

It was no fun to have your hand set on fire by a baby human torch while contemplating which fuzzy Fisher Price giraffe was actually the cutest, even though they all looked exactly the same. It was also no fun to have the finger broken when it was bitten during a game of coochie-coo chin tickling.

Whimpering at the bandaged finger, Scott glanced towards his watch through his ruby-quartz visor. The clock tick-tocked slowly towards 3PM.

Sheesh. Speaking of that, didn’t he order his caramel macchiato twenty minutes ago?

Standing up amongst his plethora of pink girly shopping bags, Scott walked towards the counter.

“Excuse me?” he called, wary as he realized that none of the normal barristas were in sight, “I’d like my caramel macchiato sometime today.”

No one else in the coffee shop seemed to notice anything amiss, chattering and pulling away at their baguettes, oblivious to the fact that all of the Starbucks workers seemed to be missing.

“Hello?” Scott called again, then glanced down towards the chalk sign that labeled which barrista was currently on duty.

Hello, today your Barrista is...Wolverine

“Mother fucker,” Scott whimpered, lifting his head slowly as a broad, calloused hand slid a cup of coffee towards him across the counter.

“Yours, I presume?” a very familiar, deep voice growled.

Scott felt all the blood rush out of his face as he stared into Logan’s furrowed brow covered eyes, “Th..Thanks,” he managed to squeak out.
Trying to nonchalantly back away from the madly grinning, green apron and paper hat clad feral behind the counter, Scott lifted the cup of coffee to his lips, took a drink, then spat the liquid across the restaurant.

“This isn’t a caramel macchiato!” he yelled, incensed, “This is black coffee!”

“Very strong black,” Logan said, using his hands to vault himself over the counter, “It’s so you’ll grow some hair on your balls.”

The entire coffee shop turned to watch the altercation, pausing mid-sip and mid-baguette munch to stare at the showdown.

“Now, give me Marie,” Logan said, holding his hands out, “And nobody gets hurt.”

“I told you in the note, you’re not getting this baby until I get a new iPhone!” Scott half-way yelped.

“Well tough shit Scooter, cuz I ain’t got an iPhone and I sure as hell ain’t buying you one!” Logan retorted, “Now, give me the baby, and you’ll walk away with your dignity.”

“I said, no,” Scott retorted, “Over my dead body.”

Logan stopped then and cocked his head to the side as if truly thinking about killing Scott, then rolled his neck and cracked his knuckles, “Well, if you want it to be like that...”

Scott winced, expecting him to pop the claws and lunge forward like a maniac berserker.

Instead, he calmly reached into his apron pocket, pulled out a little black projector remote, and pointed it towards the screen across the back wall of the coffee shop that normally showed pictures of soothing scenery and played yoga music.

It went black, then the camera zoomed in on a shadowed figure sitting in a chair.

It was Jean.

Even Logan had to admit, she looked pretty damn hot. She was wearing thigh-highs with wicked stiletto heels. A little pair of leather hot pants and a matching criss-crossed bra covered up very little of her pale as snow skin, torrents of red hair shielding her face.

She picked up something that looked like a flexible cane, then, motion activated camera following her every move, walked towards a figure that was obviously Cyclops, clad in a pink pinafore with shiny Mary-Jane shoes on his bobby-socked feet. “Bend over,” she growled, and the submissive Cyclops did as she asked, ruffles covering his nether regions in a swath of pink and white polka dotted fabric.

“Now, now, Little Bo Peep,” Jean growled, her finger nails scratching down his bare back, “Why the hell did you lose your sheep?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Scott whimpered pleasurably, “They ran away.”

“They ran away?” Jean snarled, the cane smacking across Scott’s bare ass, “That is unacceptable, and you call yourself an X-Man?”

“Yes, oh I’m sorry Jean, only if you say so, Jean, please Jean...” he whimpered as the spanking continued, “I’ve been a naughty boy, Jean, a really, really naughty boy...”

"Whoda thunk you were into femdom, Scooter?" Logan cackled.

Five minutes later, Scott was begging on his hands and knees, an astonished crowd gathering around the projector - including several old men who were hooting and hollering lecherous things towards pretty-boy Scott, who was now holding Marie out towards an impassive Logan like an offering to a pagan god, “Please, please take her back, I’m sorry, please make the projector stop, Logan, please!”

Smirking in an extremely self-satisfied manner, Logan reached out and took Marie from Scott’s arms.

He made as if to hand the projector remote back to him, then handed it to Marie.

Marie screamed and smashed the remote into dust between her hands, then let out a cackling, evil, baby laugh as she and her protector left the coffee shop.

It was then that Scott learned one of the most important lessons of his life.

One does not fuck-over the Wolverine, the Wolverine fucks you.

Grabbing his goods and taking off as fast as he could away from the coffee shop, Scott hid himself in a narrow alleyway.

“Hey, baby, can I have your number?” a deep masculine voice growled in his ear, and he turned to face the heavily-muscled, tattooed and earringed barrista who had first taken his order, “You look good in pink, mind trying that outfit on for me sometime? I’ll throw in some free coffee.”

“Oh, fuck my life!” Scott screamed, throwing his accumulated purchases into the air and running back towards his car. Once there, he climbed in and hid his face behind his hands on the steering wheel, face flushed.

And to make it worse, he still didn’t have a new iPhone.

“Some assembly required my ASS, you SONOFABITCH!” Logan swore, chunking the screw driver he held clean out the open window of he and Marie’s bedroom. Pieces of some sort of baby-bouncer that Jean had made Scott buy as part of a peace offering in exchange for the return of their tapes lay scattered across the floor, bolts, washers, and various pink plasticy pieces adorned with frolicking hippopotami in several different piles according to what Logan thought they might be for.

Of course, he could have had directions to put the damn thing together, instead of going by the picture on the side of the box. Unfortunately, he had made the mistake of setting the paper on the floor next to baby Marie, who was nom, nom, nomming on some sort of stuffed animal that vaguely looked like a cross between a baboon and Juggernaut whilst sprawled on a cutesy baby blanket covered in dancing polar bears. Having chewed Juggaboon’s tail into some sort of gummy, baby saliva pulp, Marie had promptly reached out and clenched the five-languaged paper in her chubby little hands…

And poof. Pew. Bazzam.

Destruction.

One Jubilee-Cyclops mutant eye beam short of a set of directions, a drenching from the mansion’s sprinkler systems and one visit from an incensed fired department, and Logan was up shit-creek-assembly line without a paddle. Not to mention the terrified, osmium coated, one hundred pound baby he was trying to tote out of the building.

Unfortunately, Marie had also taken it upon herself to use the restroom during this excursion, which resulted in a ten pound baby poop made out of metal.

He’d heard of shitting bricks, but this? Fucking hell.

Logan turned the box on its side and tilted his head at a ninety degree angle. If he looked at the picture that way…He plucked the nearest piece of the playkit from the ground, eyeballed its size in regards to the tiny picture, and then set about finding three other pieces that were vaguely the same size as well.

Tongue sticking out of his mouth, he set about attempting to screw the various pieces into holes they seemed to fit in, attaching washers, mix-matching screws, and slicing the edges off of certain pieces with his claws as he constructed what finally looked something like the play pen bouncer in the picture.

“Well, it’s only a little crooked,” Logan groaned, mentally tallying the time before Marie woke up from her nap inside her steel reinforced crib.

Fifteen minutes.

Glancing around surreptitiously, Logan tip toed as quietly as he could towards Marie’s crib. Her plump little baby tummy, full of mashed parsnip and potatoes, rose up and down steadily, her head sticking out at an angle that couldn’t possibly be comfortable – but Hank had explained to him that babies didn’t really have necks until a certain age, so he was sure that must be why she hadn’t gotten a neck crick yet. One chubby baby arm was sprawled ungracefully behind her head, the other squishing one of the pink polar bears dancing across her favorite blanket.

Sound asleep.

“Yes!” Logan hissed, and using every available ounce of stealth that he possessed, he crept towards the door, which was propped open with one of his work boots to try and alleviate the smell of burnt tray ceiling and paper.

Opening it as quietly as possible, Logan hoped the faint sound of the oscillating fan by the window was enough to distract Marie, who had developed the annoying tendency of waking up as soon as he left the room, and subsequently deafening him by sobbing incessantly. He didn’t see how any human baby could have ever survived before the concept of civilization was first contemplated, any predator within a hundred miles would hear that and knew it meant fresh meat.

Slipping into the hallway, Logan vaulted over the banister, rolled on the next landing, then vaulted down into the first floor entranceway, rolling again to push himself up on his feet. Shadowcat phased through him with a screech, and shaking off the strange feeling it left him with, Logan made a mad dash for the liquor cabinet in the professor’s drawing room.

Jerking the doors open, Logan reached blindly for his favorite island companion, Captain Morgan, but instead pulled out a bottle of Bacardi. Wrinkling his nose distastefully, Logan was lifting a rather large bottle of Maker’s Mark out of the cabinet when a light rap on the door made him whirl around abruptly.

Ororo stood there, holding a bottle of baby food, a burping rag slung across one shoulder, a bottle of formula in the other, “Logan… what exactly are you doing?” she asked, one eyebrow raised skeptically, “If you’re going to go on a binger, you need to hire a babysitter, and while I’m happy to bring Rogue her afternoon snack, I’m not babysitting an out of control mutant infant.”

“It’s not what it looks like ‘Ro,” Logan grumbled, walking past her. The weather witch followed him as he stalked back upstairs, “And she’s not that out of control,” he shot towards her over her shoulder.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as ‘Ro covered her nose with her hand.

Okay, so the upstairs did smell really bad.

And his eyebrows still hadn’t quite grown back.

And it did look like he had been treated to a poor hair-plug treatment as sporadic patches of hair grew back in from his catastrophic shopping trip almost a week ago.

And there was that broken high chair in the kitchen that had the bottom knocked out of it when Marie turned all Colossus like every twenty minutes or so.

Maybe she was a wee bit out of control. But not that much, right?

Grumbling under his breath, Logan kicked the door to their suite open. ‘Ro coughed and waved dust away from her mouth, “I think you need to sweep up that charred paper,” she said, “Can’t be good for either your or Marie’s respiration.”

Rolling his eyes again, Logan crept towards the crib, setting the liquor down on the windowsill. Peeping in the crib, he reached into the chair next to it to put on a pair of rubber gloves. Checking to make sure his boots were indeed rubber soled, he gently leaned in to pat his sleeping baby Marie on the cheek.

Her soft brown eyes opened, and she cooed delightedly, “Hey little girlie,” Logan baby-talked, fingers wiggling towards her tummy. She kicked her feet in the air and squealed, one hand grabbing a bare foot and sticking it straight in her mouth.

“Okay, toesies are not for eatin’ darlin’,” Logan growled, “But I guess that means you’re hungry.” Hand underneath Marie’s head, Logan lifted her wobbly self and waited while Storm got herself situated in his leather chair.

“Alrighty Storm, make sure you don’t touch her skin, got it?” Logan said. He positioned Marie on Storm’s lap so that she was nestled in her arms. Storm held the bottle up to Marie’s mouth, and she latched on eagerly, eyes wandering as Logan went back to attempting to assemble the goo-goo-ga-ga get up shindig in the corner.

Logan crept underneath the baby walker and rolled onto his back. He’d decided downstairs that he was going to treat this thing like a junk car. Check underneath to see what was missing – couldn’t put Marie in a faulty baby seat – what with her spontaneously weighing one hundred pounds or shooting eye beams from hell, and now that he was thinking of it, he needed one o’ those phase mutation blockers so she couldn’t slip out using Kitty’s skills…

“OW! SHIT!”

Lost in thought, Storm’s yell made Logan sit up abruptly. His face slammed into the hard plastic of the baby bouncer, splitting his chin open and blacking his eye. Marie wailed, her siren call making Storm’s eyes turn blindingly white as she covered her hands with her ears. Outside, black clouds roiled as the weather witch attempted to shake Marie’s mouth off of her ungloved hand.

“Ro, stop with the weather working, would ya?” Logan snarled, his speech slightly slurred as his lip knitted itself together while he was talking.

“I’m not controlling the weather!” Storm shrieked, finally shaking Marie’s mouth from her bare finger.

“Then who is?” Logan growled.

They both turned to stare at Marie, who had maneuvered herself into a sitting position on the carpet. Tears ran down her cheeks, her mouth opening to reveal two tiny teeth peeking through the tops of her gums.

“I think she’s teething!” Storm yelped, hands still over her ears as a maddeningly loud clap of thunder vibrated the massive windows of the mansion. A sound like a freight train roared in the distance, and Logan paled as a massive tornado touched down on the black top, tearing the students’ basketball goals from their moorings and flinging them towards the weathered stone walls of the mansion.

One of the poles shattered the window nearest to Storm and Rogue, and Logan flung himself in front of both of them, shards of glass embedding themselves in his back. Hissing in pain, Logan looked down to find Captain Morgan on the floor at his feet.

Almost blown away by the torrential force of the tornado’s wind as it crept steadily towards the mansion, Logan grasped the bottle of rum and dragged himself towards Marie.

“Logan, now is not the time to be drinking!” Storm shrieked, her eyes glowing pulsar bright as she attempted to slow Marie’s roaring gale-force winds.

Popping the cap off the bottle, Logan splashed rum on his hands, making sure his finger was thoroughly coated, then reached into Marie’s mouth rubbing it gently along her gums.

Little Marie hiccupped in surprise, and the tornado evaporated, bright sunshine and fluffy white clouds suddenly covering the sky for as far as the eye could see.

Storm collapsed in an exhausted heap, sweat pouring down her skin as she heaved for breath.

“Holy…shit,” Logan panted, pulling his shredded shirt from his back. He’d have to get the glass out before the wounds healed around it, “Marie, you’re lucky I love you.”

Marie just giggled and clapped her hands until he reached down and lifted her onto his lap.

“I hope she grows up soon,” Storm gasped hoarsely.

“You and me both,” Logan growled.

“Does Marie, uh, look bigger to you, Logan?” Scott asked tentatively, hands possessively clutching his new iPhone. He sat well out of striking distance, and had been minding his own business until the feral mutant had entered the kitchen with his infant terror in tow a few minutes prior.

Sometime in between the fifth jar of baby food that Marie had knocked out of Logan’s grip and the fourth cracked and mutilated high-chair tray, Scott had noticed that Marie had all of her baby teeth, was babbling, and attempting to feed herself. Thanks to the baby development books Jean was having him read, he had also noted that Marie was now holding herself up and was remarkably dexterous.

She was a far cry from the wailing infant Logan had brought home almost two weeks ago.

Logan cocked an eyebrow back, scrutinizing Marie carefully. His fingers reached out to touch her softly curling locks and she cooed delightedly, “I dunno Scooter, she has gained some weight, plus her teeth have come in. I guess I’ll take her down to Hank later to see what he thinks.”

Relieved that Logan hadn’t snapped his head, or any other important, functioning limb off (he still hadn’t forgotten the babynapping incident, even with all the baby toys and peace offerings that kept arriving by surprise at the feral’s door) Scott made his way towards the exit rapidly.

“Where you going in such a hurry, Scooter?” Logan asked, one hand rubbing wearily behind his ear, “I need some help carrying her down to the infirmary.”

“Wha... you’re a big boy Logan, why don’t you do it yourself?” Scott asked cautiously.

“Well, somebody’s gotta carry this diaper bag Scooter, and face it, you still owe me,” Logan smirked.

“I don’t owe you anything Logan, I mean, seriously! Come on! How much more are you gonna try to milk out of me?” Scott asked, incredulous at Logan’s behavior.

“Well, who’s to say I didn’t make copies of that tape, Scooter? I think if you want the ol’ adamantium six to take a shine to your dirty laundry and make them ‘disappear’ for good you might just try to butter me up a little one-eye,” Logan said, his smirk widening to a shit-eating grin that made Scott’s skin itch.

“Alright, you effing con-artist,” Scott acquiesced, “But this is the last time I’m helping you.”

Scott leaned down to pick up Marie’s diaper bag, groaning as he lifted the massive Vera Bradley, hot pink patterned paisley contraption up and across his shoulders, “What the hell do you have in this thing anyways?” he asked.

“Well, I haven’t had time to clean out some of Marie’s carbonadium poopy diapers, so they’re in the side pouch, right under your hand there,” Logan said, gesturing towards the pocket upon which Scott’s fingers conspicuously rested.

“Son of a bitch, Logan!” Scott practically shrieked. Logan winced at the high pitched sound, then snickered to himself at the thought of Scott squealing like a girl.

The two left the kitchen, Logan tucking Marie into her duct tape reinforced baby Bjorn and Scott lamentably trailing behind. Hitting the elevator call button with his fist, Logan stepped on the fast moving lift, followed by Scott, who pushed the button to take them subterranean.

The elevator slipped two levels down, then ground to a sickening halt, gears scraping and screeching as a suspicious snapping noise was heard overhead. Logan’s eyes raised in alarm, and Scott fell on the floor, flat on his stomach.

“What the hell are you doing, Scooter?” Logan hissed, kicking the mutant in the side with one of his booted feet.

“If an elevator falls you’re supposed to lay down on the ground, it saves you from dying during the impact,” Scott hissed, eyebrows furrowing overtop of his visor.

“Super healing,” Logan replied, “No elevator fall can kill me.”

“What about Marie, then?” Scott asked, “She can’t survive a fall like that!”

“Wanna bet? This girl’s got impervious skin as well as constant access to the fountain of medical youth, one touch, and she’ll be healed, good as new.”

“Still, I can’t! I’m too young to die,” Scott wailed, wallowing on the elevator’s carpeted floor.

Logan bounced, wincing as the elevator jiggled under the force of his weight. Sighing, he reached for the emergency phone, pulling it up to his ears to check for a dial tone.

“Um, Logan?” Scott murmured, softly, “The cord isn’t attached to the wall.”

“Motherfucker!” Logan snarled, tossing the phone. Frowning furiously, he leaned down, unstrapping the baby Bjorn, “Hold on to her, don’t let go of her, if you do I’ll fucking chop off your left middle toe, and then the rest of you piece by piece!”

“O...okay,” Scott stammered, carefully strapping the baby to his chest, but not moving from his prone position on the floor.

Grumbling under his breath, Logan bounced lightly on the balls of his feat then leapt upwards, three claws stabbing through the roof of the car while his hand made quick work of the ceiling tiles covering the emergency exit. Popping it out and upwards, Logan wedged himself out of the opening to climb on top of the car.

One of the cables for the elevator was severed and rusted, probably unseen damage from one of Ice-Man’s escapades or Pyro’s moody sojourns into various hidey holes around the mansion while going through his ‘emo’ stage. Rubbing a hand wearily across his face, Logan looked up the shaft. They were stuck somewhere between sublevels two and three, which left him twenty feet from the first floor of the mansion and some seventy-five feet from the chamber that held Cerebro.

Logan jumped across the small gap between the elevator and the wall, claws extended. Just as they imbedded themselves in the concrete next to his head, a sickening groan echoed through the elevator cables. Logan looked on in horror as the intact cable strained under the weight of holding both the car and its occupants, then snapped clean in two.

The car seemed to hover for a moment in mid-air before plummeting towards the shaft floor below with a sickening whistling noise.

“Oh God, Marie!” Logan yelped, before letting go of his perch and diving after the elevator car.

Logan’s stomach felt as if it had been left behind some fifty feet ago, wind whistling in his ears as he plummeted like a meteor towards the careening elevator car. He slammed into a piece of debris from the falling pulley system, letting out a loud ‘oof!’ of pain as it slammed into his gut. Flailing, he extending his claws towards the wall, attempting to slow his decent to a manageable speed.

No luck. His claws just screeched against the metal, making him close his eyes as both he and the elevator car prepared to grind to a sickening halt.

Wincing, Logan braced himself for impact...

Only to find himself floating, suspended in midair, his body weightless as if from lack of gravity. He cracked his eyes open and his jaw dropped. He hovered, only inches above the elevator car, which was frozen in free-fall, tilted slightly sideways. The top of the elevator lit up with violent heat, the edges of it melting and burning with an inward fire, then rocketing outwards with the force of a laser eye-beam that completely incinerated the top of the elevator into metal ash.

Blinding light shone out of the car, flashing off of the metal-clad figure and sparkling against the metal flecks in the air. Eyes glowing white, hovering off the ground, brunette waves flapping around her as if caught in a whirlwind.

“Marie?” Logan choked, staring at the woman below him, hands outstretched as she levitated the car, Logan, and Scott, who was unconscious below her.

“Logan?” she stammered, as if taken aback at finding herself inside an elevator, surrounded by debris and chaos, “What the hell is going on here?”

“I dunno myself darlin’, Logan replied, “But couldya put me down?”

Gently, Marie dragged Logan’s body towards her with a come hither palm gesture. Her would-be protector’s toes dragged against the tiled floor of the elevator car, which Marie lowered until it gently bumped the bottom of the shaft.

“I feel like I’ve been living in a dream,” she murmured, silver fading from her body like water sloughing off a windowpane.

“More like a nightmare,” Logan mumbled, hands reaching forward to grasp her face between the palm of his hands. She smelled wonderful. He leaned his face in, nose inhaling deeply at the junction of shoulder and neck, fingertips trailing from shoulders to palms, grasping her hands between his own.

“Logan,” Marie whispered, “Why am I naked and wearing a diaper?”

“Way to ruin the reunion,” Logan growled, lips twisting into a scowl.

Scott took that approximate moment to wake up, eyebrows lifted so high in shock and surprise that they peeped over the top of his visor. His hands frantically patted at the torn baby bjorn on his chest, and a terrified squealing noise began coming out of his mouth.

“Oh no! I’ve lost the baby, the baby fell out of the elevator, oh Logan’s gonna keeeeeelll me,” Scott screeched, disoriented as he attempted to scramble to his feet.

Logan offered him a hand, claws still out. Scott reacted instinctively, leaping up and backwards to get as far away from Logan as he possibly could, “Logan, I’m sorry, I dunno where she went,” he babbled, eyebrows furrowing as he looked at Logan, who was now shielding the half naked girl behind him from view.

“Oh,” Scott sighed, sliding down the wall of the elevator, butt slamming into the dusty, debris scattered floor, “Thank God, I’m saved.”

“I still don’t get why I’m naked and wearing a diaper,” Marie grumbled, taking Logan’s coat as he pulled it off and handed it to her with a shake of his head. “And why is this diaper so heavy? It feels like someone shit a ton of bricks in it.”

Logan snorted, then instinctively reached out to peek down the back of the diaper, earning him a swat from the newly restored, disgruntled, fully developed Marie.

“Well, you messed your diaper, guess we’ll have to change you,” Logan snickered, then sliced the diaper off casually with one claw, his long coat hanging down to Marie’s mid-thigh. “You peek Scooter and I’ll have your balls for mirror dice.”

“And what baby are you talking about?” Marie asked, mother-duck instinct kicking in as she looked around frantically, “Did I bump my head or something? Were we babysitting?”

“You could say that,” Scott replied, lifting his iPhone out of his pocket. He flipped through the latest pictures and handed it to Marie, who grasped it lightly and stared at the brunette-and-platinum haired cherub-like infant sitting in her high chair, pureed vegetables smeared across her cheeks. Even more comical was the sight of the Wolverine, mouth open in a goo-goo-gaa-gaa motion as he airplaned a spoon towards the babe’s open mouth.

“Who is that?” Marie yelped, eyes furrowing, “The last thing I remember is running into the Friends of Humanity last night, and now I wake up to find you babysitting some kid I don’t remember?” She was fuming now, eyes blazing silver, “Logan, is this some love child you didn’t have the balls to tell me about?”

Scott choked on the laugh that threatened to erupt, then snatched his phone back from Marie as Logan’s claws shot out menacingly, “Marie, darlin’,” Logan said, rubbing her shoulders gently with one hand and rubbing the back of his head cluelessly with the other, as if trying to find a way to explain, “It’s been two weeks since we were on that mission.”

“Two WEEKS?” Marie shrieked, her voice rising cacophonously loud in the narrow elevator shaft, “What the hell is going on here?”

“Well, the baby,” Logan attempted to begin, only to be cut off by Marie.

“Wait, you’re telling me you knocked me out for two weeks because you couldn’t decide how to tell me about your love child Logan?!”

“NO! THE BABY IS YOU!” Wolverine roared, veins standing out on his neck, temples throbbing with anger.

“Me?” Marie whispered, in an tiny, uncertain voice. She reached out and snatched Scott’s iPhone, staring at the little platinum streaks and the obvious look of affection on Logan’s face as he fed the happy child.

Her face drained of color, and she dropped backwards in a dead faint, fist clenched so tightly around Scott’s phone that it shattered into two pieces.

Logan caught Marie before she hit the floor, the phone falling in a rain of plastic and microchips across the elevator tile.

“NO!” Scott whimpered, fingers clenching at the microscopic pieces of what had once been an iPhone, “Not again!”