Story Notes:
You know how there's always some line about how Logan had a lot of one night stands etc. before meeting Marie? Well, what if she was one of them... This turned out much sillier than I thought it would. Heavily influenced by listening to too much Etta James. Her lyrics to "Baby, What You Want Me To Do" are a little different from Jimmy Reed's, if anyone was thinking of calling me on my quotes! ;) The movie Marie quotes is "Dangerous Liaisons." This particular line makes my little knees tingle every time I hear John Malkovich say it. Check out the awesome cover art cschoolgirl made for this story here!
1. Baby, What You Want Me To Do

Logan stubbed out the end of his cigar in the bar ashtray--a pitiful ceramic thing that had once depicted a woodland scene. The bar was noisy and more crowded than he liked, unless he was fighting. But he'd checked it out, figuring it gave him a better chance of finding something soft and pretty to take the edge off; something to keep his mind off Monday morning.

Soft and pretty was certainly on the menu at Lorelai's, he thought, taking a long draw off his beer and surveying the crowd. It was probably a neighborhood bar most of the time, but on Saturday night it drew its fair share of singles on the prowl: stopping in for a drink either before or after hitting the clubs. Pool tables and steel-tipped darts were the only games, and a battered old jukebox pumped out songs that hadn't been changed in thirty years. A fading neon sign depicting a mermaid, like one you might find tattooed on a sailor's arm in 1944, blinked in the window.

Logan glanced at a gaggle of young women plugging the juke. Too much work--you have to get one away from her friends before you could tell if she was up for somethin'.

"Usual, Marie?" Logan looked back at the bartender's voice.

"Yes, thanks, Tom." The voice was thick with kudzu and humid warmth. Logan craned his neck around a couple in the middle of a hookup, trying to glimpse the body that voice emanated from. There, at the end of the horseshoe bar, a brunette with white streaks in her hair. She was sipping something brown and strong. She was alone. Logan squinted down the bar, sussing out his potential prey.

Nah, she wasn't what he was after. He wanted something brassy and ready for anything. Preferably a redhead. Something to keep his mind off other men's wives. This girl looked... well, she just wasn't what he was after. He turned back to the floor. Maybe the tall one at the darts? A real firecracker, probably. What was that Marie doing in a bar alone on a Saturday night? She looked like she should have some boyfriend who thanked God every morning he had something as sweet as her. He sure as shit didn't want sweet, though. He wanted a good fuck and a 'see you 'round sometime.' He looked back over at her. She wasn't dressed up, not really. Jeans and a pretty little green top thing. Maybe she lived in the neighborhood; maybe she was waitin' for some friends.

"Hi!" One of the gaggle from the jukebox--a snappy short woman with, yep, dyed red hair--stood next to Logan, grabbing some matches out of the bowl on the bar. "I gotta ask," she said, giggling slightly. "Are you that fuzzy all over?"

Logan tore his eyes away from the dark haired girl with the porcelain skin. "What?"

"Oh, I just... I'm sorry... It's-- my girlfriends over there," the perky girl waved at the table of women by the juke. "I-- we took a poll and decided that you were the cutest guy here, and they sorta dared me to say something to you. I didn't mean to bug you..." she trailed off and glanced at him through her bangs. He focused on her for a minute. She smelled like she was good to go, and he had no doubt if he said a few well chosen words she'd ditch her friends in a flash.

"S'okay," he said, taking another drink of his beer.

"Well... okay," she replied. "If you maybe want to play some pool or something, I'm over there." She smiled and brushed her fingers over his arm as she left. He drained his beer and waved the bartender over. That one was too perky, that's all. He wanted someone... less perky.

"'Nother beer?" the bartender asked.

Logan nodded, stealing another peek at Marie. "What can you tell me about her?" he asked, gesturing towards her.

The bartender--not a small man, with a shaved head and a couple scars--narrowed his eyes. "She comes in every once in a while. She's a good person," he said. "I tend to take a personal interest in her well-being, if you get my drift."

Yeah, he got his drift. He didn't need a good person; he needed a good lay. "Fair enough."

He drank his beer in silence, trying to scope the crowd, but found his gaze falling on the dark girl more often than not. She finished her drink and was halfway through her second when one of the college kids from the pool tables approached her. She laughed at something the pipsqueak said and leaned close, flirtatiously.

"Hey." Logan flagged the bartender down again. "Whatever she's drinkin', get her another one, huh?" he said, sliding the money for the drink and a sizable tip across the bar.



Marie looked up in surprise when Tom set the drink in front of her. "It's from him," he said, thumbing down the bar. 'Him' was the scowling guy with the weird hair. Oh, yeah, Marie, she thought, like you can talk about weird hair. She giggled. He'd be good looking if he let up on that scowl. Waaay too hairy. She liked smooth skin. Still... he definitely wasn't one of the shiny-shiny people who'd wanna dance all night and not have any energy left for--

"You want me to tell this guy where to get off?" Oh, right. Mister clean-cut. She stifled a laugh at the image of him trying to start something with big-scowling-man. Drink-buying-big-scowling-man, who was sitting all hunched over like he didn't think he should be as tall as he was.

"No. No-- that's okay. Look, um, maybe I'll catch some nine ball with you later, all right?" she said dismissing him. Raising her drink in a toast gesture, she smiled a little at hairy-scowl-faced-man--who promptly took that as an invitation to come over.

Okay, even with the scowl, and all the hair, and the clothes that looked like they'd be more at home in a fight bar than Lorelai's, this was one good looking man. "Thanks for the drink," she said as he slid on to the barstool next to her.

He didn't say anything for a few seconds, just hunched over and looked at her intently. "Sure," he finally said, meeting her eyes. "What are you drinkin', anyway?"

Marie felt a sudden twinge traveling down her spine. His gaze and the heat emanating from his body next to hers told her she'd found what she was looking for tonight. "Bourbon," she answered. "My name's Marie, if you're asking."

A slow, lazy grin spread across his face. "Oh, I'm askin', baby. I'm Logan."

Losing the scowl was a definite improvement. Marie shifted on her stool and looked down at the bar, suddenly very conscious of her hands. He moved slightly and his knee bumped against hers. She gasped at the contact--a tiny, quickly suppressed noise that she attempted to cover with some pretty lame fake coughing. Real smooth, Marie, she thought. Make the sexy hairy man think you're a little slow in the brain. "Logan," she said. "I like that name."

His grin widened and he moved his knee away from hers. She exhaled in a mix of relief and disappointment. Then his hand dropped to her knee and he brushed it with his fingertips. Her breath caught and she blushed--blushed! The last time she blushed was-- she did not blush, damn it. How did the situation get out of her hands? She was the one in charge; she was always the one in charge. He sure wasn't like any of the others. "Glad you like it, darlin'," he said. "I like hearing you say it." Another brush, a little higher.

She chuckled, light and breezy, and lifted his hand off her thigh, bringing it up to the bar. Turning it palm up, she ran a finger over the lines. His hand was remarkably smooth and soft: it was like he'd never gotten a callus or blister in his life. The image of his large soft hands running over her body, his palms flattening against her peaked nipples while she buried her fingers in his wild, thick hair flashed in her mind, and she almost groaned.

"Reading my future?" he asked, his expression serious. "You in it?"

If there's a God in heaven, Marie thought. "Could be," she said.



Logan felt his groin tighten at her soft touches on his palm. He'd done the right thing, buying her a drink. She was the one he wanted tonight, not some brassy firecracker in Miss Clairol Copper Penny. He wanted her pale, cool skin; he wanted her warm brown eyes; he wanted her wide, full mouth. And she wanted him; the want oozed from her and perfumed the air. "Marie..." he started. "Do you--"

"Hey, Marie, sweetheart," Tom, the bartender, broke in. "You wanna plug the juke for me?" he said, handing her a couple of dollars marked with a stamp that said 'JUKE.'

"Ahh... sure thing, sugar," she said, seeming reluctant to stop touching Logan's palm, but needing a minute to clear her mind.

When she walked over to the jukebox, Tom leaned on the bar next to Logan. "Thought I made myself plain before," he said.

Logan squinted at him. "Not gonna be doin' anything she don't want," he replied. "Seems to me she can look after herself."

Tom nodded. "True. You know what she does?" he asked. "She's a teacher--teaches at a school for special kids. She's... good. I don't know why she comes here, but I do know if I hear somebody hurt her, I got no qualms about hurtin' them. Understand?"

"Yeah," Logan said. He really did understand--he'd only talked to her briefly, but he got the protective thing she seemed to inspire. He turned to watch her pick songs and saw the college boy, the one she'd been flirtin' with before he stepped in, trying to talk her up again. He got off his barstool and walked over.

"...thanks, but I think I'd rather keep talking with him," Marie was telling the kid when Logan walked up behind her.

"Need any help, babe?" he said, slipping his hand around her waist, managing to caress her hip a little in the process. It was soft, with a tantalizing hint of pure muscle.

"I was just telling Martin here that I didn't think I was going to be playing any pool tonight," she said, turning back to the juke and punching in her last selections. A hard glare from Logan and Martin gave up--just walked back to his table. Logan started to take his hand away, but Marie stopped him, laying her hand over his and pulling him a little closer. Shit.

She might be a good person, but she sure wasn't a nice girl.

Her first song started, a smoky, bluesy number. She stood and leaned back against his chest, her body flat against his.

Yeah, you got me where you want me now, the song went, a woman's voice, strong and throaty and infused with sex and hard livin'. Baby, what you want me to do?

Marie moved a little against him, drawing his hand to her stomach. Jesus, she had to feel him--getting hard like a fucking teenager just from feeling her waist and breathing her scent--against the small of her back. She swayed into him and they moved in time to the music. He moved his thumb to rub at the area just under her breast; she pressed back against his hardness, dipping her knees to create a maddening friction.

Two could play that game. He lowered his mouth to her ear and whispered, making sure to brush against the lobe with his lips, "Marie, darlin', you wanna get outta here?"

She smiled, a crooked little enigmatic upturning of her lips. The look in her eyes made his jeans seem even tighter. "I have a place," she said, heading back to the bar to grab her coat and bag.

Logan watched her, aware of the stupid grin plastered across his face. It highly undermined his badass image, but fuck it. He had no doubt this night was going to be worth it.

Marie chatted briefly with the bartender, finally laughing a little and yelling, "Thank you, mother hen," over her shoulder as she walked back to Logan. "Ready, sugar?" she asked, that crooked grin returning.

"Keep calling me that and I'll be ready all night," he said, giving her his own lazy smile.



Once outside, she told him her place wasn't far, so they started walking. "That bartender's kinda nosy, isn't he?" Logan said.

Marie thought for a little. "Tom? He means well," she replied. "He's a good guy; he has a good heart. I guess he hasn't caught too many breaks in life, and he knows people can be pretty bad to each other. It might seem nosy, but it's just his way of looking out for the people he likes. I like him; he's a good man."

Logan grunted, a sound Marie felt reverberate in her knees. Damn, she thought, even his grunts are turning me on?

"He know you pretty well?" Logan asked, not looking at her.

She scoffed. "Are we doing the thing where you say 'come here often?' and I say 'I've never done anything like this before'? 'Cause if we are, maybe I should lay a few things on the table. Yeah, I know Tom pretty well. He's a good friend. And yeah, I have done things like this before. Maybe not as often as some of the girls back there, but enough to know what I'm doing. If you want someone who'll play the game that you're the first stranger they ever picked up, you should go back and keep trying."

They had stopped walking while Marie said her piece, and when she finished Logan was looking at her again with that intense gaze of his. "Don't want someone who's gonna play games," he said, reaching out for her waist. "I want you." He pulled her flush against him and kissed her hard. She opened her mouth to his and kissed him back, meeting his passion with her own. Breaking away after a minute, Marie kissed his face, savoring the novelty of his hairiness. Why hadn't she ever thought hairy men were attractive before? Their eyes met and Logan stroked the white in her hair gently. "How much farther?" he asked.

When they got to the building, his eyes widened. Great, she thought, he probably thinks I'm some rich girl slumming it. She didn't know why, but it was important to her that he didn't think that. "It's not mine," she said. "It belongs to the headmaster where I teach--he lets some of the teachers use it when he's not. I'm not this fancy." He nodded, but didn't say anything as they walked past the doorman to the elevator. She took out a key from her purse and turned the switch that would take the elevator all the way to the penthouse. They stood in the elevator, oddly formal. She could feel the heat from him and she heard his breathing. She was utterly aware of him.



Logan didn't know what to make of the posh digs Marie apparently had access to. Maybe she was some debutante who got her kicks pretending to be a poor little teacher. A poor little good-hearted, nice smelling, fantastic tasting, teacher. He hadn't smelled a lie when she told him the place belonged to some guy at her work, though. All he smelled was her good scent. The scent that was filling the elevator at this very moment, making it very difficult for him to think of anything but hitting the 'halt' button and having her right there, on the floor.

She probably wanted to have a drink and talk a bit before, though. Women liked that; it helped support the illusion of spontaneity. She had made it plain she didn't want to play games, so maybe... "Marie?" he said, turning to her. The look she gave him burned straight to his gut. "What do you want?"

A surprised look crossed her face, then one of understanding. No games--cut to the chase. "I want you to touch me," she said.

He growled, deep and soft, and she looked surprised again. "Can do, darlin'," he said, sliding a hand under her blouse to caress her bare skin.

When the elevator reached the top floor he had one hand down her jeans and one under her bra, cupping her full breast, teasing the nipple to a hard point. She was tearing at his shirt, pulling it up to run her hands across the hard muscles of his stomach. He took his hand out of her pants and hoisted her up, so her legs wrapped around his waist, and carried her into the foyer.

Dropping her purse on the floor, she touched his face with her fingertips, marking a pattern known only to her. "Which way?" he said, sliding a hand up her back. She waved her hand in a vague direction and he carried her into the apartment. The very empty apartment. The walls were bare, and there were only a few pieces of furniture. He must have looked surprised, because Marie stopped licking the soft hollow along his collarbone and looked up.

"He doesn't use it very often," she said. "There's a bed through that door."

"Don't need anything else," he said, setting her down and lifting her blouse off, tossing it aside. Placing his hands around her waist, he dragged them up to her ribcage, rubbing his thumbs under the wire in her bra.

"Hmmm... yes," Marie said, her voice hungry. "Touch me. I need your hands on me." She balled her hands in his shirt and he took his hands off her long enough to shed it. When he unhooked her bra and pulled her close, chest to chest, she shivered and bit her lip. "You're so warm," she whispered.

They made their way to the bedroom, dropping clothes in a trail along the way. In the doorway, he knelt in front of her and pressed his mouth to her navel. Her skin was soft and smooth, like rose petals; she smelled like a New England autumn and spicy honey. She was already wet and accepting, but he needed to taste her. Nibbling down from her navel, he parted her legs gently. She grabbed the doorframe and cried out when he licked and sucked her, his tongue forming an ampersand, an infinity sign, a spiral, a delirious swirl around her clit, dipping on occasion to taste her more deeply--rich and bitter, with a hint of citric sweetness.



Marie shuddered, limp from the intense orgasm, still sending sparks along her nerve endings. She congratulated herself on picking Logan in the bar; no one else had come close to this, and it was just the preview. There was no shyness or awkward elbows with him. She seriously considered revising her assessment of hairy men. 'Don't you mean hairy men named Logan?' a little voice whispered in her mind, and she shook it off.

"Mm, sugar, you know how to treat a girl," she said. "Whatever can I do to top that?"

"I can think of a few things," he said, scooping her up and carrying her in his arms, like a bride, to the bed. He kissed her mouth like he'd explored her velvety wetness--as though he was staking claim on new territory. "Wait here a minute," he said, pulling away. "Gotta get something from my jacket."

"The bathroom," Marie said, waving in the general direction, reluctant to stop touching him. "Top left drawer."

He came back with the whole box. She smiled and bit back a comment about ambitious thoughts. "What do you want?" she said instead, echoing his question from the elevator.

"Me? I want to touch you, darlin'."

She shivered from his words and beckoned him.



When he entered her, she arched her back and welcomed him. Her heat matched his, and her tightness enveloped him, sending rivulets of pleasure flowing around his vertebrae. "You feel-- God, Marie, so..." he said, shifting, moving, turning the rivulets into rapids. She spread her fingers out on his chest and traced her secret design there.

"Logan..." she said, raspy.

He pushed into her, grabbing her hips and grinding into her, stretching her to fit his girth. He wanted to lose himself in her. She wrapped a leg around his waist and moved until she was in synch with him. Capturing her eyes with his, he lowered to kiss her, drawing a question mark in her mouth with his tongue. They moved in perfect time.

Marie's clenching muscles and breathy gasps told him she was close again; so was he. When she screamed his name and bared her neck to him, shaking, he growled and felt the rivers of pleasure reverse their flow, pouring out of him and into her. She grasped his head and watched his orgasm overtake him. Collapsing, he licked her neck up to behind her ear, tasting her salty skin. "God, Marie..." he said. "Have you ever--"

"Never. Never, ever."



They spent the night alternating between fits of sleep and sex. Slow and languorous, fast and hard.

Occasionally they talked.

"Don't stop touching me..."

"Wouldn't think of it. What happened to your hair?"

"I had a traumatic experience," Marie said, laughing and spacing her words with nibbling kisses on his chest, inching downward. "What happened to yours, sugar?"

"Heh. I guess I did, too."

"How do you know I didn't dye mine?"

"Just do. Where you goin'?"

"I think it's payback time for the doorway. I thought I'd start with one or two Latin terms... hmm?"

"What?"

"It's a line from a movie I saw once. It means I'm going to go down on you."

"However you wanna say it, babe... umm..."

"Just don't stop touching me, okay?"

"Never... Shit! Don't stop doing that-- Marie..."



2. A Sunday Kind of Love

Marie awoke when the sun broke through the bedroom window. Logan's head rested between her breasts, his breath a hot, sleepy thrum that made her want to linger. If not for her insistent bladder, she might have. She slowly extricated herself from his embrace, brushing her hand against his facial hair as she did; it was soft, not prickly at all.

In the bathroom, she stood a while looking at the shower faucet. In the past, she had always jumped in the shower immediately upon waking up; she washed her skin and let the hot spray relax her muscles, relaxing her mind as she did--letting her carefully placed blocks melt away.

Of course, most of the time, whoever she'd brought back was usually long gone by morning. She didn't like them to sleep over. Maybe she let Logan stay because they hadn't done much sleeping, she thought, smiling. So, no shower yet. There'd still be a danger if she released the blocks with him still around.

Her stomach grumbled a little and she tugged on a pair of sweats, pulling her bed-mussed hair into a ponytail. No food in the fridge, so she'd run downstairs and pick something up.



Logan woke up and reached for Marie, as he had a few times over the night. She wasn't there. He sat up and smelled coffee. Pulling his jeans on he walked out, barefoot and shirtless, towards the hypnotic call of caffeine.

Marie was sitting at the small table--one of the few furnishings in the large apartment--her knees tucked under her chin, reading the Sunday Times. She was in sweats and a tee-shirt, and she hadn't washed--she smelled like sex and him.

"Hey," she said. "I ran down and picked up bagels, if you want some." She indicated the bag on the counter. "There's coffee, too."

He poured a cup, wondering why he was still sticking around. Normally, he would've been out with a squeeze and a smile. This, though... for some reason he wanted their time together to last a little beyond Saturday night. He grabbed a bagel and spread cream cheese on it. She'd gone outside smelling like that, he thought, strangely pleased. She'd gone outside marked with his scent.

When he sat down at the table, Marie pushed part of the paper towards him. "I'm done with the front page, if you want it." His eyes must have widened, or something must have flashed across his face, because she looked a little mad. Then she laughed. "Hey, it's just the paper," she said. "I'm not asking you to marry me. For that, I'd offer you the crossword."

Okay. He could read the paper with her. It actually sounded kinda nice. Maybe if he hung out a little, they'd get a quickie in before he took off. That was what he wanted. That's all. "You really a teacher?" he asked, unfolding the paper.

She raised an eyebrow. "Did Tom tell you that?"

"Something like that."

"Yeah, I suppose I'm a teacher. Literature."

"You suppose?" He was interested now.

"It-- it's a special school. The curriculum is, um, progressive. Experimental, even."

"Okay." He lowered his paper and looked at her. She raised her head and met his eyes. Something crackled between them, and without a word they rose and swept the paper to the floor. She bit at his Adam's apple and tucked her hands inside the waist of his jeans. Grabbing her hips, he turned her away from him and bent her over the table, yanking her sweats down.

It was like that for the entire morning and most of the afternoon; they'd talk a little, then she'd bite her lip, or he'd scratch his stomach, they'd catch each other's eyes, and they'd be all over each other, hot and frantic, as though they were storing up sex for winter.

By the time they ordered Chinese and fed each other potstickers with their fingers, Logan had decided. If he was gonna be in the area for the next few months, he was gonna be spending a lot of that time with Marie. Problem was, she wasn't making it easy for him. She hadn't hinted about seeing him again; she hadn't given him her number or asked him for his; she hadn't even asked him his last name (not that he had one to give her), or told him hers. He didn't know if she wanted to see him again, and that was a new--and very disconcerting--feeling.

When she stood and stretched, remarking that she had to catch her train back home, he found himself offering to drive her to the station. They walked back to the bar and got his bike. "Shoulda known you were a motorcycle man," she said, squeezing his waist. He grunted.

At the station, he walked her in. She still hadn't indicated anything about hooking up again. "Well..." she said, turning to him. "Thanks for the lift. Um, maybe I'll see you 'round sometime, huh?"

He almost winced at the words. Those weren't the words he wanted to hear. He gripped her shoulders and kissed her, nearly forcing her mouth open to accept his tongue, warm and firm. Her body relaxed against his and she drew that mysterious pattern with her fingers on his face again. Lowering his hands to the small of her back, he pulled her against him and bent her back in his arms. When they broke the kiss, her face was flushed and her heart was beating a mile a minute. "Marie," he said, sucking her lower lip before standing them up straight. "I want to see you again."

A look of shock crossed her face. She was silent for a full minute, her brow wrinkling in thought. Then, with a sigh and a decisive nod, she opened her purse and pulled out a business card and a pen. She wrote something on the back and gave it to him. "You can call me," she said, putting the pen away.

He looked at the card. On the back, in her broad expressive script, was written: "ask for Rogue." On the front, the words knocked the breath out of his chest. He stared at the print in disbelief. It couldn't be. "Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters," the card read. "Westchester, NY." A phone number was the last line on the card.

"I see you've heard of it," Marie said, her voice cold and hard.

"Yeah," he said, still in shock. "I--"

"It's okay," she cut him off. "Maybe you need a little time to process the fact that you've been fucking a mutant this whole weekend. Don't worry about it." Her tone was venomous. "I get it."

Wait. She thought... "No," he started, but she was walking away.

"I have to catch my train," she said, running to the platform.

"That's not what--" he yelled, but she'd gotten on the train already.



Shit. Shit, fuck, shit. Of all the fucking women in the city he picked up one from Chuck's school. The very place he was gonna be spending the next months. Couldn't fate ever toss him a bone?

He'd only gone looking for a woman so he could burn out the idea of spending the next few months living under the same roof with Summers' wife. Jean had plagued his thoughts since he met her, a year ago, when she and Scott had contacted him with Xavier's offer. He'd never met a woman like her: strong, beautiful, and she seemed to have genuine concern for his welfare. The sheer novelty of it had become practically an obsession, compounded by her unattainable status as Scott's wife. Saturday, he'd gone out to get something that would take his mind off untouchable X-Women.

Funny. It had worked; he hadn't thought of Jean once since he'd heard Marie's voice in the bar last night.

He set his jaw. Maybe he could beat her train there, if he drove fast enough.



Marie fumed on the train. Why had she let it affect her? What did she care what Logan thought? He wasn't a part of her life; he was in the dark compartment no one at the school knew about. Not her life. She'd get home and wash the whole weekend off. She had to get up early, anyway. The Wolverine had finally agreed to check out Xavier's, and the professor wanted her to show him around, give him the spiel. The whole, 'successfully integrated, formerly hopeless mutant' pitch.

Logan was not a part of that. He wasn't.



He made good time, pushing the bike to its limit. She wasn't there yet, when he rolled up the long drive to the mansion. The headmaster at her school, he thought, laughing. He should have known.

Scott met him on the stairs, showing him where to park his bike. "Professor Xavier is out right now," he told him. "But he's really looking forward to speaking with you tomorrow."

Jean turned up and showed him to a room in the teacher's wing. "How many teachers you got here?" he asked, casually. He smelled Marie in the hall. Not a strong scent, but a lingering ghost of one, as though she'd walked by days ago.

"Not many. We're not a large school; several of the teachers are, in fact, former students, like Scott and myself. With all the difficulties young mutants--often runaways, with no other family--face, it can help if you know your teachers have faced the same struggles."

"And you're all part of this X-Men thing, too?" Progressive curriculum my ass, he thought.

"Yes." She smiled at him a little when she said it, and he was surprised that it didn't make him want to come on to her.

She left him with a reminder that Xavier wanted to talk to him in the morning. The door shut, and a few minutes later he caught Marie's scent--still mingled with his--in the hall. She was talking to Jean out there, and he was torn between wanting to open the door and reveal himself and wanting to hear what she was saying.

"...if I could get some more of that, just to help with the headache?" she was asking Jean.

"Rogue... how long have you had the blocks in place?"

"About twenty-four hours." Real small, tiny voice.

Jean sounded worried. "You know it could get dangerous after twelve hours. The potential for serious harm increases. An aneurysm, Rogue, or worse."

"I know. It won't happen again--I didn't plan on it."

"I'll fetch something to help you sleep," Jean said. "But I don't want to keep doing this on any kind of regular basis, understand?"

He heard Marie close her door--she was right fucking next door to him--and drop her purse and coat. She made little puttering around sounds, taking shoes off and so forth, until Jean came back with her painkillers.

"You know, he's here," he heard Jean say.

"Who? Wolverine?"

"He's right next door. What did Scott tell you about him?"

"Not much. You, uh, you know he doesn't tell me much beyond mission stuff these days. Professor Xavier said he wanted me to play the tour guide, give him the 'we're so great, don't you love us,' song and dance."

"It's not a song and dance, Rogue." Now Jean sounded miffed. "We really can make a difference--not just in individual lives, but in the world."

"I know, Jean... I-- I'm sorry. I'm just feeling cranky. I know what a difference y'all have made in my life, and I'll make sure he knows it, too. I just need to get some sleep."



Marie shut her door and made a beeline for the bathroom. Turning the faucet as far towards 'hot' as she thought she could take, she stripped and stepped under the spray. As the water hit her back and ran through her long hair, she closed her eyes and relaxed the mental block that kept her skin dormant.

The release was almost orgasmic.

She wasn't Marie anymore; now she was Rogue--untouchable and feared by others. Screw that Logan, anyway. There were plenty of other men in the world, and not one of them was going to fuck with her mind, or make her forget what she was and what she could do.

Never again.



3. At Last

Logan woke up with a start--he wasn't in some motel, or his old busted up camper. He was in a nice clean bed, and the sun was just rising. He'd actually slept pretty well, which made two nights in a row. Practically a record. Of course, the night before, he hadn't really slept all that much. He showered and changed, just in time for Scott's knock.

"Hey, uh, Wolverine... We're going to head down to breakfast with Professor Xavier--you're invited, if you want."

Breakfast with the professor was a private affair, in his office, with a few of the other teachers. Scott and Jean, of course, and a strikingly beautiful black woman with white hair who introduced herself as 'Storm, but you can call me Ororo.' Shit--didn't this Xavier have any average-looking women working for him? Or was he playing 'trot out the hot chicks to get the Wolverine to stick around'? Marie was nowhere in sight.

"Wolverine," the professor started with a friendly smile. "I trust you found us with little difficulty?"

"Wasn't hard."

"Indeed. I hope you enjoyed the establishment I recommended?" This with a wider smile as he reached for the toast.

Damn. Chuck had told him about that bar. Last week, when he'd agreed to come out to New York, check out the school, maybe teach the kids a thing or two about fightin', consider the whole 'X-Man' thing. Was this whole thing a fucking setup? Take Jean--if you don't wanna move on another guy's wife, try this pretty little nice smelling girl. Shit-- he didn't need to take this. Wait... he was talkin' about her.

"Rogue will be showing you around the facilities today. We are quite proud of her. She has strived to overcome great obstacles surrounding her mutation, and is now a valued teacher and member of the team. She should be joining us soon--I must warn you though, her mutation can be quite dangerous. If you should touch her bare skin, it could very well kill you; it absorbs life-force as well as the gifts of other mutants. She has made some progress in controlling it, but it is always wise to be cautious."

The image of her naked body stuck to his with their combined sweat jumped through Logan's mind. Dangerous, all right.

"You talking about me?" There it was--that drawl that went straight to his gut. She was walking through the door, not quite seeing him yet. Her hands were encased in gloves, and she wore a scarf around her neck. She walked a little further in the room and then--there--she saw him. Surprise, shock, anger, sadness, bewilderment, all warred in her expression in the span of a few seconds, finally settling into a cool detachment. "Hello," she said, with a smile that could be construed as kind, if you didn't already know what her kind smile looked like. She folded her hands behind her back.

"Rogue, this is Wolverine," Chuck was making introductions.

No act with her. She was still different--no pretending this was the first time they'd met, no 'hi, my name is Rogue.' Just 'hello.'

What the hell. "My name is really Logan," he said, standing up, oblivious to the surprised looks all round. "Hey." He stuck his hand out to take hers. She smelled different. Not just because she'd showered; she smelled crisp, like fresh snow.

"Can we postpone the tour for a half-hour or so? I've got a student that needs some attention," she said, meeting Logan's eyes. Her eyes were as distant as they could possibly get. "Meet me in the front entryway, all right?"



Scott walked with him to the entryway. "That wasn't very nice, taking her hand like that," he said. "She's resigned herself to a life with minimal touching, and moves like that-- well, she doesn't need anyone thinking of her as some kind of a challenge."

"What?" Minimal touching? What the hell was going on here?

"Rogue. You taking her hand? She's very pretty... but she's not, um, available, that way. There's too high a risk for accidents."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Logan was honestly confused. Whatever had happened that weekend, it was a far cry from minimal touching.

"Accidents--with her skin. She has some control, but it's erratic. It's too dangerous for her to, uh, be intimately involved."

"Look, Scooter, shouldn't she be the one to make that decision?" Why was he arguing about this? For all he knew, she hated his guts now.

"It's happened before," Scott said. "She thought she had her control down, and she, er, was with someone and, uh, it slipped."

Something was weird here. Scott's scent changed and he was tilting his head down. "What happened?" Logan asked, watching carefully.

"She absorbed, um, some of his power, and he... passed out for a day or two."

Shit. "It was you, wasn't it?" Scott's flush and clenched fists gave him his answer. "You cheated on Jeannie with her, huh?"

"No! Damn. It was before we got married. Jean and I broke up for a while--six months, actually--and Rogue was learning her control... It was while she was in college. She came back one weekend with a whole semester's worth of laundry... I was helping her with it, and we were talking and one thing led to another..." He trailed off, grimacing slightly. "She slipped, and knocked out a whole wall in the laundry room with an optic blast."

"She's better now, though, right? Better at controlling it?"

Scott frowned. "I'm not sure. I-- I don't think she's been with anyone since then. Certainly not anyone around here."

Logan snorted. His confusion was starting to clear up.



Marie spotted them and hurried down the hall. Scott talking to Logan--that couldn't be a good thing. She felt like all her carefully constructed walls and compartments were starting to collapse. "Hey," she said, a little breathless from running. "Scott. I can take it from here." Logan looked at her weirdly, but that was to be expected.

She took him outside first. "We have extensive grounds, as you can see," she said, waving her hands at the woodlands. She didn't look at him.

"Marie--"

"Rogue. Here, it's Rogue," she said. "They don't know Marie. There's a nice trail to the lake over there."

They walked towards the trail.

"So you're the Wolverine, huh?" she asked, breaking their silence.

"Yeah."

"You have metal claws?"

"Yeah."

"Show them to me."

"Marie..."

"Just do it."

With a sigh, he stopped walking and held his hand away from her, popping the claws. She grabbed his wrist and brought his hand up for a closer inspection. There wasn't even a trace of fear on her when her gloved finger gently touched the points between his knuckles where metal met flesh. "Huh," she said, dropping his hand.

"I didn't know who you were," she went on, walking ahead. "Charles didn't pimp me out, if that's what you're thinking." Her body was tense and her fists tight, as if she was trying to convince herself.

"I know." Her reaction in Xavier's office had been too genuine.

"Good."

"Why do you call him Charles?"

"Why do you call him Chuck? I-- oh, I absorbed someone he was good friends with once. Part of that whole 'traumatic experience' thing." She scowled, almost enough to give him a run for his money.

"I meant what I said. In the train station--about seeing you again."

"Just didn't think it'd be so soon, or so often, huh?" Good--a little smile, there. Headway.

"You meant it, too. Don't deny it."

"Logan... That-- what happened with us, it-- it's separate from my life here."

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why is it separate? Because of what happened with Scooter?"

Damn. A half-an-hour alone with Scott and he already knows the single most humiliating moment in her life. "Isn't that enough? Every time anyone walks by the new wall in the laundry room, they're reminded of how poor Rogue lost her virginity--playing the other woman to the school's super couple."

"Scott said they'd split, then." He was looking at her, watching her face.

"Who remembers that now? They were together, then those few months, then they got married. No one cares if they were technically apart then. They see that new wall and think 'uncontrollable adulteress'."

"You had pretty good control this weekend," he said, grabbing her gloved hand.

Now she looked really sad. "No one will touch me anyway," she whispered.

"I will."

Her fingers tightened around his. "Don't-- don't say that unless you mean it," she said.

"I don't say things I don't mean," he said, stepping closer to her and leaning down into a kiss.

"No-- my skin. I don't have the blocks up," she said, stopping him with a hand to his chest.

He didn't stop though; he leaned closer and touched his bare lips to hers in an oddly chaste kiss, given the kisses they'd shared before. The pull started almost immediately. He dropped to his knees and said, "Huh," right before he passed out.



"Get up." Something was prodding his ribs. "Wake up, damn it. I know you heal." Marie's voice, a little panicked. "You are not making me tell Charles I almost killed another one of his favorites."

That made him laugh, and he opened his eyes. She was kneeling beside him on the lake path. "Not everything is about you, babe," he said, patting her knee.

She looked a bit angry, then smiled, eyes sparkling. "I know... Sometimes I forget," she said. "It's one of my many character flaws. In case you were still thinking of seeing me again."

"Well, now, I dunno..." he said, standing up--still dizzy. "I'd only do that if I wanted to have incredible sex with a beautiful girl who moves in time with me, makes me happy, and is fun to talk to as a bonus..."

"I know things about you now," she said, taking his hand in her gloved one. "When people touch me, I get memories and thoughts, too. I think you should know that. Sometimes people get weird about it."

"What do you know?" Fuck--this could be the end of things before they ever got off the ground.

"Not a lot, you didn't touch me for that long. I know Jean's the reason you agreed to come here, and why you were there on Saturday. I know the professor told you about Lorelai's. I know you don't remember anything before twenty years ago. All you know is what you found at that place where you met Scott and Jean last year... I know you did, um, bad things. I know-- I know how you feel about me."

"Not a lot, eh?" She was still holding his hand, a sign he took as a good one. "You know the things I've done? Is-- They're not--"

"They weren't you."

"Marie..."

"More importantly, I know how you feel about me. I-- I, uh, I think I feel it, too."

"You--"

"I know it's not... how things usually happen. It's fast, it's crazy... Maybe it's not totally real. But..." she squinted and chewed her lip. "Maybe it is. Maybe it's real. Maybe it'll be real if we both want it to be." She tightened her hold on his hand.

"I... I think I could want it to be." He shifted his shoulders and cleared his throat.

"Me, too." She looked at him and her dark eyes drew his lighter ones in, enveloping his soul in hers.



Later, they sat on her bed, carefully touching and talking. They talked about little things, what they liked and didn't like. She told him she'd go with him if he wanted to leave, that it wasn't some elaborate plot to get him to stay. He asked if she'd stay with him if he wanted to hang around a while.

When she finally drifted off in a nap, he got up and wandered the halls, waiting.

(Logan)

There it was.

(Logan--if I may indeed call you that now)

Whatever.

(I am in my office)

He made his way to Xavier's office, slamming the door shut when he entered. Xavier smiled his amused smile.

"You set me--us--up," Logan said, growling. "You set us up in every damn sense of the word. Xavier's school for gifted kids and mutant dating service."

"I'm afraid I don't know what you are referring to," Xavier said, sipping his coffee.

"You told me about that bar--a place you know she hangs out at. Hell, you probably told her about it, too."

"Not at all. It's merely the only place in close proximity to my apartment that she would enjoy frequenting."

"So you did set us up. How'd you know we'd take to each other?"

"Logan..." he said, somewhat exasperated. "Sometimes fate does throw you a bone. You'd be wise to catch it, and not question from whose hand it was tossed."

Logan thought about his words for a moment, his scowl deepening. "Maybe-- maybe you're right," he said. "But I don't have to like it much. On principle."

"Of course not," Xavier said, almost winking. "Perhaps you should be on your way? I think Rogue is starting to wake."



As Logan walked away, Charles tapped his fingers on the rim of his coffee cup. Things had worked out remarkably well. They'd face some difficulty when the others found out, but such things often served to strengthen a bond. Now... what to do about Ororo? She'd been a little quieter than usual lately. Hmm. Wasn't there a rather brilliant mutant scientist working in California right now? A single one?
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