"What was it like?"
I was beginning to wonder if she'd ever spit it out. She's been crouched in the snow several feet away for the past half hour, arms wrapped round her knees, watching me work on my bike. Okay, Cyke's bike, if you want to get technical.
Not a fucking peep out of her til now. No 'hello.' No 'how are you.' Which is just fine with me, but that usually means she's stewin' over something and it'll spill out sooner or later. A quick glance in her direction tells me she wishes she hadn't opened her mouth at all -- lower lip caught between her teeth, her face flushed red. Not quite looking at me.
Eight months on the road by herself and I can still see everything she feels, just by looking at her. I have no fucking clue how she survived. Sometimes I hope she never learns to hide herself.
Turning back to the bike, I give her an easy out. "What was what like?"
She doesn't take it. Marie is the type of kid to follow through on what she does, even if it's blurting out half-formed questions in this soft, lost-sounding voice.
"The world."
Shit. She's not one for the simple questions, is she? God knows, to Marie 'the world' includes everything beyond the fucking fence, from Salem Center's 7-11 to Tokyo and everything in between.
"Hmm."
She ain't allowed to leave the grounds, you see. 'Not unaccompanied by a member of the team,' so says Xavier himself. 'Untrained and as yet unable to control her gift, she poses too great a risk to those around her. Her life here is a pleasant one, Logan, if perhaps a bit too controlled for your liking."
I was basically told, politely, to mind my own damn business because he and the rest of 'em know what they're doing. If her life is so fucking 'pleasant' here, why the hell is she out here crouched in the snow, pulling her huge sweater over her legs, asking me to tell her about the goddamned world?
"Yeah . . ." she trails off, realizing there ain't no way I can answer that question for her.
The fuckers are lucky I don't just toss her on the back of my bike and take off for good. The only thing stopping me is the fact I know they're pretty much right. This is a good place for her to grow up and and live around other mutants and get an education. And what would I do with her, out on the road? Tell her to park it on a stool while I fight in a cage? Haul her around with me while I search for my past? That's no kind of life for her, either.
She's shifting her feet in the snow, and even if she is completely covered up in layer after layer, she's gotta be freezing her ass off. But she's out here 'cause I'm out here, and it won't do a damn bit of good to tell her to go on inside. It's like this whenever I come back -- she'll hover and follow, watching me do whatever, just staying near me.
Like I said, she has a way of wearing her heart on her sleeve.
Any other kid and I'd tell it to her like it is and not mince words, either. Marie isn't like any other kid, though. Actually, Marie isn't like anyone I've ever known. She's one of the very few, as far as I can recall, that don't annoy me just by breathing.
Mostly she just sits close by, quietly watching. But then she'll say something or ask something and I find myself telling her about all kinds of shit I've never talked about before.
"What did you do?" And maybe tomorrow or the day after, when she asks again in a different way, I'll go into detail. But we've been out here too long, and while the cold don't bother me a bit, I'm not about to carry her frost-bitten ass back inside.
I glance back at her, checking her mood. She's watching me with those big brown eyes of hers, eyes that really are a bit too big for her face. She'll grow into them sometime soon, and here's hoping she grows into that nose, too. Even if she doesn't, it's easy to see the kid's going to turn into one hell of a knock-out any day now. Too bad she overdoes it with the scarves and gloves and anything else she can find to cover up every last inch of skin below her neck.
She's clearly waiting for an answer that tells her all kinds of things about me and my life and how I live it. Makes me wonder about how her absorbed memories work, or if they faded away until there's nothing left but spontaneous, inappropriate growling and the kind of mouth any sailor would be proud of.
"What I do," I finally say, shrugging. She's kind of cute when she doesn't get her way - the kid's an inch away from out-right pouting at that answer. "Just move around." And I turn back towards the bike before I actually smile or something.
"You were in Canada again?"
"Yeah."
I can hear her shifting around on the ground again, trying to keep warm or get warm, either one. Getting herself as comfortable as possible.
I can practically smell her irritation with that kind of answer. If I bothered to look, I'd find her eyebrows scrunched together, eyes narrow, mouth frowning in the kind of way only people with a mouth like hers can frown.
"What was it like?"
Frustrating. Empty. A complete waste of my time. She knows I left the last time because Xavier gave me what he thought was a rock-solid lead, a clue to my past and who I used to be. I should have told her not to get her spirits up, because I pretty much knew before I was even out of New York state that I could chase my own tail and come up with as much information as I was likely to find in Canada.
"Uninformative, Marie."
I don't feel like rehashing the whole thing with the kid, not today. I don't want to tell her all the ways I came close to finding something concrete, only to come up short. Like always. Went from Calgary to Vancouver, down into the States through Michigan and some parts of the East Coast.
I didn't find any mutant kids needing to be rescued, either, which Xavier isn't likely too thrilled about, but fuck it. I agreed to come back and fight with the X-Men whenever he contacted me by speaking directly to my mind -- freakiest fucking thing ever, by the way -- and I agreed to send any mutant kids I stumbled over his way, too. In return I'd have a home of sorts, a permanent place to keep my stuff, a bed of my own that I never have to wonder what kind of bugs have been crawling over.
Not a bad offer, especially considering the fact that Marie lives here, but that wouldn't have been enough if he hadn't also promised to work with me on recovering my memories and finding out what happened to me.
His lead had me tracking down two men reported to have been part of Weapon X. One died several years ago at age 87 and the other lives in a nursing home and can't speak. I have to say, I didn't exactly look too hard this time for mutant kids to send Xavier, but on the other hand, any I'd find would more than likely prefer to stay in their shitty situation than climb into a truck with me and my good mood.
And most mutants in trouble just don't have the courtesy to find me in a bar and hide in my truck.
Meeting Marie in Laughlin City was a fluke I'm not likely to ever repeat. And thank God, too. Yes, she's the reason that my life has some sort of stability to it now, which I didn't even realize I wanted. Yes, she's wormed her way into my heart whether I liked it or not. But for fuck's sake, one lovesick seventeen-year-old is just about all I can handle per lifetime.
She sighs, annoyed by my answers or the fact that I've spent most of the past half-hour turned away from her, I don't know. She's been out here long enough, anyway, and I've done about all I can on the bike until a part I ordered comes in on Tuesday. And truth is, I want to spend some time with the kid, pay attention to her even if Xavier and all the rest of 'em say that isn't exactly the best thing to do.
The whole damn school talks about us and wonders just exactly what kind of relationship we have. I know what it must have looked like when Storm and Cyke brought us to the school -- a grown, rough-looking man and a pretty, barely-legal Southern girl. Didn't help matters when she came into my bedroom to wake me from that nightmare and ended up with three claws through her shoulder, and all they saw of it was Marie in a torn, clingy nightgown and me on the floor, knocked-out cold from touching her.
It's been a little while since then and it's clear that Marie isn't my wh-- well, that we're not together or anything like that. I might have crossed many, many ethical lines in the sand over the years, but the kid's just that -- a kid, and I like my women grown, thanks.
So she's got a crush on me. Big deal. Given everything that happened and how I, for whatever reason, seemed to be the first to give a crap-and-a-half about her, I'm not surprised. I don't give a flying fuck what Cyke says about me spending time with her. She's a friend, one of the few I have, and I'm not about to ignore her or brush her off for something she'll grow out of.
And I miss her, especially when I'm in or around Laughlin City. Sometimes I find myself wondering if she has any school breaks coming up, and even more disturbingly, if she'd be any help if I brought her along with me next time.
I stand up, brushing my hands off on my jeans, reaching into my pockets for my gloves. While I'm here, I usually try to keep a pair of gloves on, 'cause I've seen the kid sit there watching all the bare skin around her with this look on her face that makes me want to look around for Cyke because I feel like punching someone.
I walk over to her, pulling the gloves on. "Nothing to do right now?"
Her mouth drops open but she closes it immediately, biting back the smart-ass comment on the tip of her tongue. I have a pretty good idea of what she was about to say, and it's hard, keeping a grin off my face.
"Not really," she finally answers. In a place this big with this many people? On a school day? I'm wading in bullshit as deep as the snow drifts now.
I offer her a hand up, and the way she glances at it for a split second irritates the hell out of me. Before I have time to get worked up over the fact that nobody in this fucking place seems to have balls enough to touch her through several layers of material, she reaches for my hand and wraps her fingers strongly around my wrist.
As soon as she's on her feet again I put an arm around her and turn back toward the school, and I wonder if this is a shock to her system, too. God damn, does no one touch this kid at all? Ever? My guess is no, if the sudden spike in her heart rate's anything to go by.
After a few steps toward the mansion she sneaks her arm beneath my jacket, wrapping it around my waist and -- God. Well, maybe there's another reason why her heart's pounding. Cyke's probably watching from one of the hundred windows, ready to shoot my old ass down with those fuckin' beams of his.
If Marie were anyone else, I would have left her here and been done with it. Saved her life twice, job well done, too young to screw, toxic skin. But there's something about her that forces me to care and hell if I know what it is. The fact that I care about anyone at all is strange to me.
"You up for a little workout?"
When I'm back here at the school, I always make a point to work out with her, for several reasons. For one thing, I've seen how Cyke trains the mutants Marie's age, and I'm not all that impressed. Straight, honorable fighting is all fine and good, but Marie is going to learn how to use every goddamn dirty trick in the book so she can get out of a fight with her life.
And for another, it's time I can spend with her that isn't watched and criticized by everyone from Xavier to Marie's little friends.
She shrugs her shoulders beneath my arm as if she doesn't care one way or the other. As if I can't hear the way her breath hitches just a little before she answers.
"Sure."
Pulling away from her as we enter the gym, I reach up and ruffle her hair, messing it up, and that pisses her off. Her arm drops from around me, and she all but snorts in frustration as her heart rate slows a bit. Maybe this way she'll focus more on what I'm teaching her, and less on the fact that I'm touching her.
She steps away from me, pulling off her jacket. Plopping down on the floor, she tucks her legs up under her chin, arms circling her legs again. There's this look in her eyes, behind the sudden wide-eyed innocence, that just means trouble. It's a mixture of irritation and orneriness, eyebrows just a bit too high for normal.
I strip off my own jacket, along with a few shirts as I wait for her to say something.
"Logan, can I ask you a question?"
Kid's smart. I'll give her that. But the thing is, I may not be quite sure when I was born, but I'm pretty damn sure it wasn't yesterday. I don't trust that tone of voice.
God only knows what she's going to ask me. She's trying her best to look seventeen and not a fucking day older, all awkward knees and elbows and innocent eyes staring up at me. I ain't buying it -- the kid has my memories, Magneto's memories and a horny kid's memories swirlin' around inside her head.
"What?" I ask, and all but brace for impact.
She starts wringing her hands a little, just a bit, looking up at me like I have the answer to her every question. The hair on the back of my neck rises.
She holds the look for a moment, catching her full lower lip between her teeth. Then: "There's this guy . . ."
Aw, fuck. She's good.
I sit down across from her, wondering just how soon I can get away from her and this question. I know what she's doing -- okay, maybe I shouldn't have treated her like a kid just then. Because now I get to deal with kid problems.
It's clear she's out to make me squirm -- and part of me admires that. But I don't want to sit here and talk about some sniveling twerp, whether he's real or not. My gut tells me she's making it up, though I'm not sure enough to call bullshit.
Because if she's asking me now about boys, sometime soon she'll ask me about sex. I sure as hell don't --
"Hey."
Goddamn. The kid's got me so wound tight that I didn't even notice Jean approaching.
I look up from Marie's face to the woman standing behind her, up long legs and a slim waist, up over small, high breasts, her long, pale white throat. Red mouth turned up in the corners, green eyes smiling too. She's got her hair wound up in a simple pony tail and my mouth is suddenly dry, wanting to taste her.
I'm up on my feet as she steps around the kid, moving toward me. "Jean," I say, and even I can hear the relief in my voice.
There's a twisting in my gut some would call a flutter, and I know she feels it too. I can see it in the way her eyes widen a bit, in the way her nostrils flare just slightly. I can hear it in the echo of her mind, when she touches my thoughts.
But this thing between us, whatever it is, won't ever happen. She loves her boy, for whatever reason. I've seen the way she looks at him, the way they treat each other. If she cheated on Cyke, even with me, she wouldn't be Jean.
And she'd wake up hating herself just a little more than she'd hate me.
I turn my thoughts back to Marie and her 'situation' just when Jean's presence in my head grows. *Problems?*
It always takes me a minute to answer. Both Xavier and Jean taught me how to do this, so they could reach mentally reach me whenever I'm needed for the team, or if something happened to Marie.
*She's asking me about boys, some guy in particular. I'm pretty sure she's yankin' my chain.*
Her head tilts a bit, questioningly. *Why would she want to 'yank your chain'?*
The obvious responses are just that. Too obvious. *We were about to start training when I made her feel like a child. I think she's trying to turn it around on me.*
*Smart girl,* the mental echo of her voice says, and she leans toward me, touching my arm. *You don't need to be rescued, do you?*
*God. Please.*
She drops her hand, turning toward Marie with a little grin. "Rogue, why don't you come by my office when you and Logan get finished?"
It's an effort, but I manage to keep my eyes off her ass as she walks away.
Marie looks like she's had the wind knocked out of her sails, poor kid. I know Jean's not her favorite team member, and it ain't that much of a secret why. She wanted to talk about boys, though, and by God she's going to. Even if she has to make them up.
Just not with me, and not today.
I flex my fingers in the gloves, letting go of all thoughts of my Marie and boys her age sniffin' around her. It seems like just yesterday she was pulling her gloves off in the cab of my truck, asking if I had anything she could eat.
"Get up, kid. Let's do it."
She rises to her feet, her body lacking the easy grace of a grown woman. She's still in something of an awkward phase, still more child than adult, but she's come a long way from the skinny kid I met in Canada.
Right now she's still a girl. Tough, strong, and smart, not to mention beautiful, in a way that's all her own. And soon she's going to be a woman.
Sometimes I hate that she's seventeen.
Sometimes I wish she'd stay seventeen a little longer.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Story Notes:
This is a Remix (http://remix.illuminatedtext.com) of "For Now" by Jenn (http://seperis.illuminatedtext.com/xmenindex.html) and y'all should read it, the two of you who haven't already. Also, thank you to everyone who helped drag me through this. Em Meredith, cheerleader extraordinaire. Manada, the toughest beta reader I've had the pleasure of working with. Macha, for listening. Bree, for telling me wonderful things. And Jenn, for writing the most amazing story in the first place.