Although he had made the offer spur of the moment, once it had taken root in his mind, Logan was able to think of little else. It seemed odd to him that he couldn’t picture the child; there seemed to be no preference in his rambling thoughts for a boy rather than a girl, for a child who would look more like him, or more like Marie. All he could really see in his mind was Marie herself, gazing down at a blanket wrapped bundle with a soft, tender look on her face. And then she would look up at him and smile brilliantly as she held out a hand inviting him to join them.
All in all, Logan thought it was a pretty messed up picture.
He was a loner, he told himself. Unattached and independent. And yet he had stayed more or less put in the last ten years, with only the occasional one to two month foray into the Canadian wilderness. Like it or not, he now realized, he had become domesticated. He loosed a half-hearted growl and propped his booted feet up on the porch rail as he popped the top on another bottle of Molson.
When had it changed? He supposed it was after Alcatraz. After Scott and the professor and Jean. Prior to that, he had always run before he became attached to people or a specific place, knowing that sooner or later he would lose them, so what was the use getting tied up with them? He had always assumed he’d be the one left behind, whether the people just moved on or died. Frankly, he had expected that death would always be the dividing line. He hadn’t aged at all the last ten years while those around him just seemed to be speeding on by. All the children who had grown up too fast, Storm’s face beginning to show the passage of time, even Hank’s fur now shot through with silver.
Marie. Even Marie was starting, finally, to look older. Logan sighed heavily and rested his beer bottle on his stomach, lacing his fingers around it. Suddenly, he felt the urge to run again. But it was no more than a faint, restless tickle at the back of his mind that he managed easily to quash. He’d never run again, he knew. He had too many responsibilities, too many people who counted on him to be here.
It had started with Marie, not with Alcatraz, he thought with sudden, startling clarity. From the moment he had pulled to the side of the road to wait for her, he had already started piling duties, responsibilities, and obligations on himself. And he had just piled it deeper on the train when he had promised to take care of her. Strangely, that one decision – to take care of Marie for however long she needed him – was the thing he was most proud of in his life.
They had offered to free him from his responsibilities once, about a year after Alcatraz. Storm and Marie, finally speaking to each other again, had approached him on this very porch one hazy afternoon and told him that they were fine. They could manage well enough on their own now that the school was fully staffed once again and mutant registration was no longer on the political agenda. Logan smiled faintly as he remembered his response.
Shock, first and foremost, followed by an angry, offended growl that had had Storm backing up a step. But not Marie. She had tilted her head to the side thoughtfully before drawling softly, “But you know we’d love it if you stayed.” Storm had immediately argued with Marie by telling her it was unfair to pressure him, that he needed to be able to make the decision free and clear. When Marie remained silent and instead continued looking at Logan, Storm had lashed out in anger, accusing Marie of being selfish yet again and considering no one but herself. The quick flash of pain in Marie’s eyes pulled the words from Logan’s lips. “I’ll stay,” he had said, “and nobody’s pressuring me.” He had gotten up and walked away, and the subject had never been discussed again.
Logan sighed again and took another sip of beer.
“Problems?” a low, cultured voice asked from behind him.
He jumped and sloshed beer onto his flannel-covered chest. Cursing, he whirled around to face Storm, who was laughing in delighted surprise.
“Did I actually manage to sneak up on the Wolverine?”
Logan grunted. “Not the safest thing to do, you know.”
“Oh, but I wasn’t trying to,” Storm said. “It seems you were just too distracted to notice me. What’s wrong, Logan?”
He considered suddenly that Storm’s input on the matter might be helpful. Other than Marie, he had known Storm longer than anyone else at the mansion. He opened his mouth, intent on blurting out the whole situation, when something occurred to him. Other than him, Storm was Marie’s oldest friend as well. Shit, shit, shit, he thought. I can’t talk to Storm about this. That won’t leave Marie anyone to talk to. There’s no way Storm could talk to us both and not end up taking sides somehow.
He sighed again, missing the way Storm’s eyebrows rose. “Nothing, Storm. Just thinking about some stuff.”
“I…do you need to get away for a while, Logan? Is that it?” Storm asked, her voice soft and understanding.
“No,” he said in genuine surprise. “Nothin’ like that. Hell, I haven’t gone anywhere in…hell, when was the last time I took off?” He frowned.
“Precisely,” Storm countered. “Whatever…stuff you’re thinking about might be helped by a couple months away.”
A bark of laughter escaped his lips. “No, not this time. This ‘stuff’ definitely won’t be helped by time away. As a matter of fact, this ‘stuff’ would be completely screwed up if I hit the road now.”
“It’s Rogue, isn’t it?”
Logan choked on his beer. “What? Did she talk to you about it already?”
Storm’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “No, she hasn’t talked to me about anything. It’s just that she’s the only one you ever get worked up about. Jacie breaks her arm in three different places,” Storm said, referring to an accident one of their newer students had had three months ago, “and you shrug and tell her to suck it up, while Rogue can’t even stub her toe without you barging in to check on her.”
Logan scowled. “I’m not that bad, am I?”
“No, not quite that bad,” Storm conceded. “But you get the point.”
He stared at her for several seconds before muttering sullenly, “I was plenty worried about Jacie.”
“Funny way of showing it,” she said dryly.
“Storm,” he protested, “the kid was going into shock. I didn’t think lettin’ her panic would help at all. Yeah, maybe I was a little harsh, but it surprised her enough that she quit thinkin’ about her arm long enough for me to get her to Hank.”
“That it did,” Storm acknowledged.
Logan thought the incident through in his mind. He compared his actions to those he had seen from Storm, Marie, and the other teachers. They all used soft, soothing tones to calm frightened or injured students. Even Hank was soft and soothing, although efficiently businesslike.
“Storm?”
“Yes, Logan?”
“Do you think that I’m…that I’m bad with kids?” he asked awkwardly.
Storm smiled serenely. “You certainly have an untraditional approach.”
He frowned. “Bad then, right?”
“Why, no,” Storm said honestly, surprised by his slightly dejected look. “Rogue took to you right away all those years ago.”
“Rogue was never really a kid, Storm,” he reminded her gruffly.
“No, no she wasn’t,” the woman said sadly. “Artie certainly liked you, though.”
Logan smiled as he thought of the little boy with the forked tongue. Not a little boy anymore, he reminded himself. Artie, at twenty, was off at college studying Quantum Mechanics of all things. Regardless of what he studied, Logan chuckled to himself, he would always remember Artie sticking his tongue out at Stryker.
“And Jacie,” Storm said, interrupting his thoughts.
“I thought you just said I was too harsh with her.”
“Maybe,” she said with a smile. “But surely you’ve noticed the little shadow following you around the last few weeks?”
“What? Nobody’s been following me, Storm. I would have smelled her if she was.”
Storm gave a tinkling laugh like wind through the trees. “No, Logan. Literally, a shadow.”
He frowned as he remembered the odd shifting that he had been noticing from the corner of his eye lately.
“Jacie can separate herself from her shadow, can’t she?” he asked, abruptly realizing.
Storm nodded. “Yes, but it’s more than that. Using her shadow, she can monitor whatever or whomever she chooses. And she’s been watching you, Logan.”
“How the hell did you notice that when I didn’t?”
Storm laughed again. “It was when you stopped by my English class last month. Jacie’s little face perked right up and her shadow slipped out the door after you. I’m not even sure she realized she did it that first time. But since then, she’s been sending her shadow after you every chance she gets.”
Logan smiled, kind of liking the thought of the little girl following him around. The smile faded suddenly as he tried desperately to remember if he had done anything recently that little girls shouldn’t be seeing. Dammit, there was that busty blonde at the bar downtown last week! He was on the verge of breaking out in a nervous sweat when he remembered that Jacie’s ability was limited to a distance of two miles. He made a mental note to avoid the bars closest to the mansion.
“So I’m not entirely bad with kids?”
“No, not entirely. You’re honest, Logan, even with children. You make such a habit of being honest – brutally so – with everybody, while the rest of us try to cover things up for the children. Tell them little fibs now and again so they don’t worry. But we forget how perceptive children are. They know when they’re being lied to. They just don’t call us on it like an adult would.”
Logan swallowed the last bit of his beer. “Wonderin’ why you’re lyin’ to ‘em’s just gonna make ‘em worry more, Storm.”
She nodded. “Yes. And that’s why the children like you, Logan. They know that you’ll tell them the truth. And that means they can trust you when you say that you’ll help them, or that you’ll keep them safe from the bogeyman.”
He winced. “Heard that, did you?”
Storm gave him another serene smile. “I thought it was rather ingenious, letting Sammy in on the secret that bogeymen are allergic to adamantium. However, flashing your claws was perhaps a bit much.”
Logan scowled and stomped away in search of another beer and a dry shirt, trying to ignore Storm’s laughter.
Maybe, just maybe, he thought with something suspiciously like warmth creeping over his heart, he would make a decent father.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000