The black SUV containing a singed ‘n’ crispy Wolverine, a baby Marie, a scared Scott, and an exhausted Hank pulled through the mansion’s gated entry way. Logan, now in a particularly growly mood, had held cranky baby Marie the entire trip, bouncing her up and down on adamantium knees and playing “ride the horsey.”
“Marie, Marie,” Logan had said in a sing-song voice, “Ride that horsey, ride it to town, baby let go, baby fall doooowwwwnnn!”
Unfortunately for Scott’s new iPhone, the minute he had attempted to record Logan playing with Marie, a claw had skewered the device and flung it from the moving vehicle. Scott wasn’t sure that death-by-mutant was covered in his warranty, but he wanted to check as soon as they were inside nonetheless.
Someone (Scooter, Logan’s inner voice snarled) had also decided that it was prudent to introduce baby Marie to ice cream as they stopped through a drive-thru to appease Logan’s desire for killing something by feeding him copious amounts of red meat. (Eating cheeseburgers, was theoretically, in Hank’s mind, the same as murdering large amounts of mutant students) Consequently, now Logan was stuck with a baby covered in ice cream, vomit due to Marie’s infantile lactose intolerance, and shredded bits of paper napkin and plastic spoon that had stuck to the stickiest bits. It looked like he had left with a baby, and returned with one of those damn critters from that Wild Things movie Marie had dragged him to last month.
Growling loudly, he shoved Scooter out of his way and stomped up the steps that led from the garage into the house. Catching a glimpse of Jubilee’s hideous coat from the corner of his eye, he chucked Marie at her and stormed into the kitchen. Pressing a finger onto the genetically keyed freezer that contained Xavier’s particularly expensive alcohol collection, he poured himself two glasses of brandy and two fingers of Scotch, then chased them with a shooter of Everclear.
Smacking his now numb lips together, Logan placed his head on his hands and rubbed his temples as Jubilee marched into the kitchen, holding Marie at an arm’s length.
“What the hell Logan!” she yelled, “You’ve ruined her outfit.”
Hearing no response from the practically catatonic Wolverine, she poked him in the ribs, huffing, and decided to bitch him out whenever he came to. Marie looked like a tornado in a trailer park, bits of shrapnel from a plastic silverware explosion stuck to her nose and ears. Her two-toned hair was sticking straight up in a baby-mohawk, and something that smelled like sour milk obscured the phrase on her shirt so that it now read, “Mommy’s little ass.”
“Well, since you’re filthy,” Jubilee said thoughtfully, “I might as well feed you something healthy, how about it kid?”
Marie giggled, and Jubilee tapped a bare finger on her little button nose. “Hang on kid, I think we’ve got leftover pancakes AND spaghetti in here.”
After securing Marie firmly in a booster seat at one of the chair-backed stools underneath the bar, Jubilee fished out the respective dishes and warmed them up. Jubilee zoomed a metal spoon towards Marie’s mouth, making airplane noises as she went.
"Open up the hangar little Marie, pancakes coming in to land!" Jubilee said cheerily.
Marie smacked her gums together, enjoying the savory flavor of maple syrup mixed with spaghetti sauce. Patting her little fat hands on the tray, she was also pleased to find that it was also sticky.
What’s a baby to do?
Jubilee stared in horror as Marie squished her entire face into the pancakes and spaghetti, smacking her hands aimlessly in the air, superstrength sending gobs of meatballs up to hit the antiqued tin ceiling. When she emerged, she stuck her tongue out and let out a blood curdling scream of delight. Spaghetti dripped from her hair like the heads of a medusa, red sauce had dyed her white streaks orange. Syrup permanently cemented the silverware shrapnel, and wadded her hair up into almost impossibly tangled knots.
The scream, however, had done what Jubilee could not. A snarly Wolverine appeared in her peripheral vision, superfast metabolism and healing factor resulting in a perfectly sober, but slightly hung over, Logan.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he growled, staring at Marie in dismay. “Holee shit! It looks like you let her in the danger room, with Magneto, at Golden Corral!”
Jubilee was absolutely speechless at Logan’s outburst. She was even more speechless when he pulled off his navy blue hoodie and wife beater, revealing oodles of muscles that rippled delightfully in the afternoon sunlight that trickled through the wooden kitchen blinds. Picking up the sticky baby, he stalked out of the room.
“Enough syrup on her that skin contact wouldn’t even matter...,” Logan hissed. Children dodged out of his way as he turned up the third flight of stairs and into the teacher’s wing. Opening his and Marie’s private, sound proofed suite, he jerked a shamwow from the pile of baby goodies that had been transported from the car to their room.
Frowning at it, he lifted one non-existant eyebrow quizzically. Who knew they sold shamwows in the baby section?
Ripping open the packaging, Logan wrapped sticky Marie in it, then tucked her under one arm as he found the contraption for bathing babies that Xavier had put an image of in his brain before the shopping trip. Lifting it out, he tossed the instructions into the nearest trashcan. Walking into the bathroom, he settled Marie, who was blowing spit bubbles contentedly, on his hip.
Looking like a Mr. Mom out of any Baby ‘R’ Us catalog, he ran the water to a little hotter than luke warm, then settled the pre-assembled baby chair in the water. Jerking off his jeans and boots, he climbed into the massive four person tub and sat in the six inches of water. He made sure the chair was firmly suction cupped to the bottom of the bathtub, then shimmied Marie out of her ruined clothing.
Or attempted to shimmy.
There was so much syrup soaked into the fabric that it was impossible to get the shirt or pants off over her head. Fuming silently, Logan slid one claw out a fraction of an inch, then sliced the outfit off of Marie. Holding her gently underneath her neck, he placed her in the baby bathtub.
Marie let out a little cry of surprise when the water touched her toes. Reaching for one of the soft wash cloths and the baby shampoo Marie kept in the basket next to the bathtub in case of an emergency, he gently began to soap up Marie’s hair and to de-stickify her skin.
Unfortunately for Logan, Marie did not approve of his methods. A fierce frown began to build on Marie’s face, her eyes scrunching up and her lips poking out in a pout. A tiny wail began to erupt from her mouth, and Logan, exhausted, balding, and almost to the point of crying out to Sabretooth to put him out of his misery, did what any young parent would do.
He picked up baby Marie and cradled her gently against his chest.
“It’s okay darlin’, it’s okay. It’s just water and soap, you even like this scent, remember?”
Marie’s cries died down softly, and he patted her back gently. Maybe she needed to burp. She had just eaten something incredibly heart burn inducing in any sane adult.
“BURP!”
“ZAPOW!”
Faster than Logan could anticipate, Marie did indeed burp.
Unfortunately, one of Jubilee’s lightning bolts accompanied that baby bodily function.
Electricity zoomed around the bathtub, up Logan’s adamantium bones, and rattled around his skull as his ears smoked and he bit through his own tongue. The lights of the mansion flickered uncontrollably, then went out. Marie giggled, invulnerable skin making her completely immune to the absorbed power.
Eyes rolling, Logan slumped against the edge of the bathtub, having managed to piss himself in the process of being removed from all human faculties by an infant. Marie patted his chest with her fat baby palms, then touched his slack jaw as his healing factor went into overdrive to compensate for the damage.
“Holee shit,” Logan gasped, hoarsely, as his heart finally began beating again and the mansion lights resumed their normal functions. Desperate to get out of the bathtub, he reached for the nearest towel, removed his pissed on boxers, and wrapped the white terry cloth around his waist.
Wrapping a baby blanket and a diaper on Marie in one fluid movement, Logan walked to the door to the suite and slammed it open, intent on murdering, or at least maiming, Jubilee. Scott stood there, broken iPhone in one hand and the mansion landline portable in the other. Logan could vaguely make out a genius bar consultant’s voice on the other line, “Mr. Summers, Mr. Summers?”
“What. The. Fuck. Do. You. Want.” Logan hissed, claws sliding out with a ‘snikt’ on the hand that didn’t hold Marie.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Scott replied, not even bothering to take the stairs in his haste to get away from Logan, he leaped over the third floor balcony and rolled as he hit the lobby’s travertine tile.
Glancing at the landline phone Scott had left, Logan reached down and gently hit the “end call” button. Suddenly exhausted, it was all he could do not to crawl to the bed, drop Marie into her basinet, and fall into a puddle of extremely tired mutant.
Killing Jubilation Lee would have to wait until tomorrow.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
A/N: In which Logan gets the shock of his life, baby Marie eats pancakes, and Scott loses an iPhone.
Suggested listening: La Roux "Bulletproof"
Been there, done that, messed around
I’m having fun don’t put me down,
I’ll never let you sweep me off my feet,
I won’t let you in again, the messages I try to send
The information's just not going in
Suggested listening: La Roux "Bulletproof"
Been there, done that, messed around
I’m having fun don’t put me down,
I’ll never let you sweep me off my feet,
I won’t let you in again, the messages I try to send
The information's just not going in
Chapter End Notes:
Let me know what you think! :P