Jubilee grinned toothily in return. "Hey, chica. I came rushing home thinking you needed my help with certain matters, and here I find out you're doing just fine on your own."
Logan's right eyebrow hitched upward. "Certain matters?"
"Never mind," Rogue replied hastily as she scooted off the hood of the car. She jogged over to Jubilee and pulled her into a hug. "Say anything else and I'll wire your jaw shut with rusty razor wire," she hissed furiously into her ear.
Jubilee jerked back in surprise and gave Rogue an appraising look. "Ohhh-kay," she said cautiously, shooting a look over Rogue's shoulder at Logan. If his enhanced hearing had picked up Rogue's threat, he had a damn fine poker face. He had something else damn fine, Jubilee noticed.
Catching her looking at him, Logan growled low in his throat and dropped his hand to crudely adjust himself in his jeans. "What the hell you doing here, yellow?"
Jubilee answered with a leer, "Just came to catch up with my girl here. She mentioned that things between the two of you were going to be changing."
Logan's gaze shifted to Rogue. "You told her about the wedding?" he asked in surprise.
Her eyes popping wide, Jubilee stuttered, "W-wedding?" She snatched up Rogue's left hand. "Where's the ring?" she demanded.
"No, I didn't tell her about the wedding," Rogue muttered in irritation as she pulled her hand away from Jubilee's tight grip.
"Where. Is. The. Ring?" Jubilee demanded again, narrowing her eyes at Logan suspiciously.
"It's being resized," Logan answered absently, his eyes intent on Rogue's face. The faintest hint of a blush was creeping over her cheeks.
He squinted at her face appraisingly and a knowing smile quirked his lips upward. Shifting his gaze to Jubilee, he winked. Jubilee’s mouth dropped open slightly and she frowned in confusion.
“I take it the Cosmo quizzes were your idea, Sparky?”
“Ha!” Jubilee crowed in delight. “I guess they worked then, eh, Roguey?” She tried to nudge Rogue with her elbow and only succeeded in knocking her off balance.
“Yes, they worked, you menace,” Rogue growled, rubbing her ribs.
Jubilee clapped her hands in delight. “Am I gonna be an auntie any time soon then?”
“Jubilee!” Rogue protested, shooting Logan a dark look at his snort of laughter.
Unfazed by the look, Logan said, “That’s the plan.”
“Seriously?” Jubilee’s amusement disappeared. She looked cautiously between Rogue and Logan, but was unable to decide if Logan was just pulling her leg. Rogue continued frowning at Logan, giving Jubilee no further information. Coming to a quick decision, she skipped the few feet to Logan’s side and grabbed him by the elbow. She whirled him around and pulled him after her. “Come on, Wolvie. I need to talk to you.”
“What? Why?” Logan asked in irritation, tugging at his elbow. Jubilee knew that he wasn’t using his full strength to break her grip, fearing that he might hurt her if he did.
“Jubilee!” Rogue protested again, taking a step after them.
“We’ll be back in a minute, chica, just sit tight!”
“But--”
Curious, Logan decided to cooperate with Jubilee for the time being. He cut off Rogue’s protest, tossing over his shoulder, “Wait for me in the kitchen, darlin’?”
“Hm. ‘Darlin’.’ Cute,” Jubilee observed.
Scowling, Logan returned, “I didn’t say it to amuse you.”
“I know,” she said, patting his arm comfortingly. “That’s what makes it cute.”
Finally seeing where they were heading, Logan asked disbelievingly, “The stables?”
Jubilee shrugged. “The location doesn’t really matter I guess. Just figured we’d have more privacy here than anywhere in the mansion.”
“What the hell do we need privacy for?” Logan grumbled, turning to face Jubilee when she finally released his arm.
He was startled by her narrowed eyes and tightly clenched jaw.
“You been messin’ with my girl, Wolvie?”
“What?” Confusion swirled in Logan’s mind, worsened by the lingering arousal edging his thoughts.
“You’re not stringing her along by promising to marry her, are you? ‘Cause if you are,” Jubilee jabbed him sharply in the chest, “I’ll take you out.”
“What? No,” Logan said, absently rubbing his sternum where Jubilee’s sharp fingernail had broken the skin even through the layers of his flannel shirt and wife beater.
Jubilee snorted loudly. The sound startled the horse in the nearest stall, a tall chestnut mare who swung her head toward them with a nervous whicker. “You’re not the marryin’ type, Wolvie. And you don’t strike me as the type to play daddy either. So what the hell’s going on? If you just want to give her a good tumble, then fine. I’m all for that and I’ll even help you seduce her. But this fake engagement is plain cruel.”
Logan’s growing anger replaced his amorous thoughts with ones of a more homicidal nature.
“Just one question for you, Sparky,” he growled, leaning forward aggressively. “Where the hell do you get off thinking it’s any of your business? You go months without returning any of Rogue’s phone calls and now you’re concerned for her?”
“Hey, my job keeps me busy,” Jubilee protested.
With a derisive snort, Logan continued. “Fine. Maybe it does. You didn’t have a job when you were still in high school, though, and when Bobby broke up with Rogue, you spent more time with him and Kitty than you did with Rogue. She needed you then too, but you couldn’t be bothered.”
Jubilee’s left eye twitched. “She wasn’t exactly the most forthcoming little thing then, Wolvie. She went off and took the cure without tellin’ any of us. If she didn’t need my help with that, why they hell would she have needed it when she and Bobby broke up?”
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Logan snarled. He cut off Jubilee’s protest with a vicious cutting gesture in the air between them. “How could she have talked to anybody about that? Who the hell understood what she was going through? You want to tell me you know how much pain she was in not being able to touch anybody? To be touched? If you understood, you should have known she’d jump at the chance for the cure.”
“If she wanted touch that badly, why the hell’d she keep turning Bobby down, huh?” Jubilee challenged.
Scoffing, Logan turned his back to her. “You really think she could have gone from not even being able to hold hands with that little jackass to hopping into bed with him as soon as she got back?”
“She didn’t have any problem cuddling up with you!”
Logan turned sharply on his heel to face her once again. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean? It’s been ten years since she took the cure.”
“I’m not talking about now,” Jubilee sneered. “Do you know what it did to Bobby to find Rogue snuggled up with you every time he went looking for her? You know how many times he would back out of a room instead of interrupting the two of you?”
“Come off it, Jubilee,” Logan said in disgust, using her name for the first time in years. “You know there was nothing like that between us then.”
“But Bobby didn’t!” Angry tears stood bright in Jubilee’s eyes. A thought flashed through Logan’s mind.
“You were in love with him,” he said in a low voice, watching Jubilee closely. The slight hitch in her breathing told him he was right.
“No I wasn’t.”
Logan nodded. “You were. And you think Rogue is somehow responsible for him not ending up with you.”
“She - He-,” Jubilee spluttered.
Squinting at her, Logan asked, “You’re not still in love with him, so why are you still angry at Rogue?”
“I - ” Jubilee’s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug and she held both hands palm up in question. “I don’t know,” she finally said.
“All right,” Logan said slowly. “Any idea why you’re angry at me right now?”
Jubilee’s anger was roused again. “Because you’re just like him!” she accused.
“Like Bobby?” Logan was torn between disbelief and amusement.
“Yes,” she snarled. “You hang around waiting for Rogue to make up her mind and ignore everybody else in the meantime.”
“Who am I ignoring?” Logan asked. “You?”
Jubilee’s wordless sputtering amused him. Until she managed to get her next words out. “Sure. I would have jumped your bones at least a half dozen times if you had ever shown any interest.”
Logan’s eyebrows shot up and his head reared back in surprise.
“But no,” Jubilee continued, “Rogue wasn’t even interested in you and she still got all your attention. I just don’t get it,” she finished in disgust.
“You want to jump my bones?”
“Not now I don’t,” Jubilee snapped.
“Okay. Just checking.” At his nonchalant tone, Jubilee narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You want me to explain some things about Rogue?”
Jubilee nodded cautiously.
“First thing you need to know is that even though she took the cure, it didn’t heal any of the damage her mutation caused. She reads more into every touch and gesture than you can imagine. And she’s afraid to trust whatever conclusions she makes because, in some part of herself she isn’t even aware of, she still considers herself untouchable.”
“You’ve lost me, Wolvie,” Jubilee admitted grudgingly.
“When she was still a mutant, nobody made any effort to touch her unless they wanted something from her. Bobby wanted what any teenage boy wants. Magneto wanted to use her power. Every touch had some sort of expectation behind it. She got so used to that that even now she’s suspicious of people touching her.”
“You were never like that, though,” Jubilee mused.
Logan shrugged. “And maybe that’s why she’s willing to take a chance on me after ten years.”
Snorting, Jubilee said crudely, “I’d hardly call trying to get into her pants a touch without any ‘expectation’ behind it.”
Logan felt his face heating. When Jubilee tipped her head in curiosity, his blush deepened.
“What am I missing here?” she asked.
Clearing his throat roughly, Logan said, “Never mind.”
“Wolvie, you gotta tell me!”
“Why should I? You come here because of some misguided anger and guilt over something that happened ten years ago and accuse me of wanting to take advantage of Rogue, and you expect me to explain my actions to you? Forget it, Sparky.”
“All right. Fine. I can understand that, but don’t think that I don’t care about Rogue. So can you answer just one thing for me?”
“Depends on the question,” Logan hedged.
“You’re serious about marrying her?”
Jubilee’s eyes were steady on his, her gaze more serious than he had ever seen it. But behind the seriousness, he saw a glimmer of worry. That, more than anything, allowed him to answer her honestly.
“Yeah. I’m serious. And it’s for keeps,” he added, smiling to himself as he used Rogue’s childish phrasing. He ignored Jubilee’s surprise as his mind wandered over the past weeks, wondering how such a short period of time could have more weight and meaning in his heart and mind than the thirty, forty, fifty or more years before it.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Happy New Year, ya'll!