“Hey,” Marie light-heartedly said as she stepped on the elliptical machine beside Ricochet. The girl turned her head to giver her a look. A classic Logan look, Marie noted to herself. The younger girl then looked back forward, shaking her head, her heavily breathing and the groaning of the machine under her the loudest noise in the gym.
Marie looked to Peter, who was in the back, well out of listening range, lifting weights. She always wondered why he even bothered. It never seemed like much of a challenge or workout to him.
“So you’ve been pretty successful in avoiding Logan these last couple of days,” she started and pretended to be busy pressing buttons on the equipment. In reality she had been looking all over the mansion for her until Chava finally told her she was in the gym. Logan already said he wasn’t saying shit to her until she apologize, leaving Marie to mend the rift between them. Which meant she had the impossible mission of getting a direct offspring of the Wolverine to admit fault. She considered that maybe the part of her in Ricochet would help dissolve Logan’s stubbornness, but then she remembered she could be a bit....difficult too. “Must have been a challenge.”
“Nope.” Ricochet answered, tightening her swinging ponytail. “He’s made it pretty easy.”
“Actually, you’ve both made it easy,” she corrected herself.
Marie huffed and her hand shot to her hip, “What the hell is that suppose to mean?”
Ricochet shrugged, “The whole mansion knows what you two have been so -busy- with.”
The news hit her square in the chest and caused her jaw to drop. How the hell could everyone know? Yeah, her and Logan had been together a lot lately; learning each other and testing the waters of what their relationship really was and meant. Up till now she thought they’ve been very covert about it. But if the whole mansion knew–
“Jubilee.” The one word from Ricochet’s mouth instantly explained everything. “She said she saw ya’ll leaving the movies. And evidently ya’ll stayed in the car a while.”
The movies. Friday night she told Logan they had to go on a date. A real date. He agreed to take her to the movies if, and only if, they could go to his favorite bar afterwards. And then they ended up never actually making it to the bar.
“I’m sorry. I should have– WE should have talked to you about it first. Before we, well...” She wasn’t real sure what to say. She wanted to say before they did anything but she seriously doubted Logan would have gave a shit about someone else’s permission. She settled on, “You should have heard it from us first, not from word of mouth.”
Ricochet shrugged again, taking a long drag from her water bottle. “Why should I care? Besides, I’m use to it. It use to seem I couldn’t go a week without someone telling me where they caught my parents.”
Marie blushed, in spite of herself. To her she was doing that way too much already lately. The Rogue did not blush. Luckily this time she could blame the workout should anybody call her own it. It was easy for her to imagine her and Logan together in the garage. In the library. Outside in the gardens. Years of fine-tuned fantasies had planned out different scenarios in almost every square inch of the mansion. And just recently she found out Logan had quite a collection of his own. The roof was by far her favorite. At night, under the stars, a Cashmere blanket under her, Logan laying beside her. His hand spayed out across her stomach, nearly reaching all the way across. His bare hand.
“How do your parents do it?” She found herself asking. These last five days her and Logan had been doing a lot of touching. He touched her in ways no one was brave enough to try before. Or she was brave enough to let them, for that matter. But so far Logan kept telling her they should take it slow. Yes, Logan. Then he’d tease her for hours, always stopping right when she was ready to take that final leap. She’d curse at him, he’d try to soothe her with words. Yes, Logan and words instead of hands. Of course then he’d curse *himself* for taking it too far, for not being able to stop, for being the animal he kept telling everyone he wasn’t. And then the mood would be gone; she would be more concerned with absolving his blame then getting off. But never that he wasn’t taking it far enough, or that he was stopping too soon, or that she wanted the animal. All the things she really wanted to say. Because saying that turned into a ‘I’m corrupting you’ speech and that was so much worse. Just once it would be nice if someone finally give her credit for her own corruption.
“Do what?”
“You know... have kids?” Right. Have kids. That was the last thing she wanted, especially if the emotional swings having Ricochet around caused her was any indication. But she also didn’t want her thinking her mom was a sex addict.
“I don’t know. I usually tried to stay away from the ‘Hey mama, how do you and daddy have sex?’ question.”
Caught and now fully embarrassed, Marie mumbled a, “Right, sorry.” When Ricochet’s eyebrow shot up at her she was reminded why she came here in the first place, since she certainly wasn’t getting any kind of exercise. “So, um, I hear Logan tried to give you some boy advice.”
The girl growled at her and Marie found herself actually quite impressed. Which was saying something because she’s heard a lot of growling over the years. It was a shame Logan didn’t hear it; it would have probably made his day. She noticed there was little difference between them, however. When Logan growled his whole top lip snarled up, showing off his rather formidable fangs. On the other hand Ricochet only lifted one side of her lip, more of a Elvis Presley than anything else. Marie added ‘get Ricochet and Logan to stand together and growl’ right under ‘get laid’ on her to-do list. What could possibly be a cuter picture?
“He’s just trying to look out for you, you know. It shows how much he cares.”
“I don’t need him to look out for me or care,” Ricochet snapped back.
Marie stopped the elliptical and sighed, she knew this was going to be hard. “Don’t be like that. He’s just doing his job, the whole dad thing. And he’s new at it, so cut him some slack.”
“Listen,” Ricochet hissed and stepped off the machine. Marie watched in slight horror as her grey eyes seemed to darken right in front of her. “I don’t know why you people seem to think we’re lost, little orphans or something. We HAVE parents. I already have a dad, okay? I don’t need a replacement. Or a mom for that matter. More importantly we’re adults. And I know this is hard for you to wrap your mind around but *we* are the X-Men. THE X-Men. Not the junior squad or whatever- the elite. WE are the heros. We don’t need saving; so stop trying to.”
Marie stood there and watched her leave. She was holding back the tears that for some reason insisted on coming, despite how much she told herself she didn’t care. Counting the seconds she waited for an appropriate time to leave without drawing Peter’s attention to her. The Rogue has been seen blushing too many times this week. She would be damned if she was going to let anyone see her cry too.
********************************
She walked down the amazingly familiar corridor, her face buried in her towel. She knew she was a little hard on Marie but she couldn’t stand it anymore. Between her and Logan she felt like she was twelve again. And she was nine years too old for that shit. She didn’t even like it when she was twelve. And in her house growing up you were taught not to bite your tongue when you had a problem– you bit someone else.
After giving her face one more good wipe she lowered the towel to find Philip barreling towards her.
“Woah, you look like shit,” she diagnosed. His normally crystal clear blue eyes were completely blood shot and his skin was grey and ashen. She reached her hand up to touch his face to see if he had a fever. But was stopped when his hand shot up and forcefully grabbed her wrist.
“I’m fine. We need to talk.”
Ricochet rolled her eyes at his reaction but moved her hand away anyway and placed it on her hip instead. “So talk.”
“I found Brainwave. We have to suit up and go get him before he moves again.”
“You *found* him?” Ricochet narrowed her eyes at him, “How the hell did you *find* him?”
“I used cerebro.”
“You...” She gaped at him at a loss for words. Looking him over again she realized he looked a lot worse then a cold. Usually he stood completely board straight, a sure sign of his arrogance. But now he was slumped over, like his body was trying to swallow itself.
Suddenly she found move than enough words. “What the fuck is the matter with you lately? You know you don’t have the kind of mental power to use cerebro! Is that where you’ve been since Monday? Lying alone in a twitching heap somewhere?! Shit, Phillip, you’ve probably fucking permanently fried your brain!”
“I’m fine. I was... nevermind, it doesn’t matter. I’m fine now. Just so you know your screaming doesn’t help my head any.”
A frustrated laugh escaped her, “Me popping you one isn’t going to help either.”
“Look who’s talking. How many times have you run off half-cocked on your own?” He raised his voice and had to clench his eyes shut from the pain it caused inside his head.
“Except for *I* know what my limitations are. You could have DIED, you dumbass!” She wacked him on the shoulder with her towel, seemingly for emphasis.
“Well I didn’t. So just shut up for once and get off my fucking back and go get the others. I’ll meet you guys in the hanger.” He pushed past her by she grabbed his arm, stopping him.
“You can’t go with us. You’re in no fucking shape to go on a mission.”
“I believe its up to the squad leader who goes and who stays. And last time I checked I’m still the god damn squad leader. So guess what? I’m going.” He jerked his arm away from her and began walking back the way she came.
“I could punch you in the head!” she called out after him, seriously considering the idea.
“Ten minutes. Then I’m leaving, with or without the rest of you.” His voice floated back to her, even though she could no longer see him.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This is the beginning of it all going to hell.