Disclaimer: This fan fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended.

“Well, let’s hear it for Rogue!”

And Tony Stark whistled appreciatively at Rogue’s exit. Shooting a shit-eating grin at the collective cameras and giving her a little clap. To his left Storm, Hank, Jubes and Remy all rolled their eyes, the latter keeping a restraining hand on his wife though Tony didn’t care any. After all, that had been waaay too entertaining for him to keep his opinion to himself. To his right he could see Pepper put her head in her hands, the oh-so-familiar expression somewhere between horror and amusement on her face. She had a black eye, her arm was in a sling and her business suit looked like it’d been through a tornado but he could honestly say he’d never seen her look more beautiful than she did right now: No matter what that Daken bastard had done to her she’d come through it in one piece. She stuck her tongue out at him for staring and his grin widened. “Yeah!” he whooped. “Let’s hear it for the hottest X-Man on the planet, yeah? Look at her go!”

As she passed his podium Marie shot him the finger.

“Just a little ball o’ Southern sunshine!” Tony cooed. Then ducked when she turned momentarily back and tossed the wing of the Blackbird his way before sashaying away.

You deserved that, Pepper mouthed at him.

I know, he mouthed back. But I’m totally hot so you don’t care.

He couldn’t help but notice that Miss Potts didn’t contradict him on that, so he decided to grin some more.

The boyfriend was struggling to his feet then. A bitter look on his face, the expression almost a mirror of the one Senator Osborne was wearing. Apparently neither man liked the idea of an empowered woman wearing leather- Or tossing around bits of aeronautics. (Though strangely enough, Tony was willing to bet that Rogue and her leather uniform would feature prominently in both men’s late-night reveries for years to come. After all, it was usually the ones who liked self-possessed woman the least who fantasised about them the most.) Osborne was grinning smarmily at the cameras, going to help the boyfriend up. “You okay, son?” he asked stoutly, making a big deal out of helping him stand after the big, scary mutant babe kicked his ass to the curb.

“I will be, sir,” Callum answered, laying the pain on a little thick. After all, he’d only been winded: Tony knew first hand what Rogue could inflict if she took it into her head to hurt you. “I just tried to tell her the truth about someone-” he sounded bewildered, “And then Wham! She went for me-”

Osborne looked into the nearest camera. “Isn’t that always the way with these mutants, though?” he said, doing his best impression of Charlton Heston. All serious and sonorous and like he should be leading the Roman Legions into battle. Unfortunately it was a tone that would play well on the Evening News, Tony knew. “Aren’t they always reacting with violence to the most general of actions? Always hurting those they purport to care about?” Osborn shook his head mournfully despite the murmured misgivings of the crowd around him and Stark’s skin literally crawled. “Tell me, son-” Son? Tony thought, Why hello Pa Walton- “How long were you with that little…Hellcat?”

“Two years, sir,” Callum answered. “We’d moved in together.” He lowered his head, trying to look Aw, Shucks and Tony silently wondered what drugs Marie had been taking to make this creep appear anywhere on her radar. “She said she had to come up here to a, “family emergency”- he shot Logan and the girls a sullen look- “And then the next thing I’m on the ground and she’s abusing me. Saying a nice, normal guy like me- who’s a doctor, by the way- isn’t what she wants. Isn’t good enough for her. All so that she can get back with that bastard there, the guy who picked her up in a bar when she was only sixteen years old and started… grooming her-”

That had not been a wise choice of vocabulary on Callum’s part.

Because in the space of a second Logan had cleared the clearing and was standing by the younger man, pinning him to the podium. His adamantium-laced fist placed tightly against the underside of the young man’s jaw, Callum’s shirt-collar tangled in his other hand. The younger man’s Adam’s apple bobbed nervously as he tried to swallow and suddenly they had the attention of every reporter in the place. Tony shot Osborne a look and the bastard was grinning like a kid on Christmas morning.

Not for the first time during all this, Tony suspected that things were going exactly as he’d planned.

“What was that, boy?” Logan growled then.

“No- Nothing,” Callum babbled. “I- I-” his gaze met Osborne’s and he suddenly seemed to gain some bravado. You could practically see his ball-sac growing in size. “I just repeated what she told me,” he said, his voice getting stronger. “She said she was sixteen when you picked her up. Only sixteen. And you-” The younger man shook his head- “It’s like Senator Osborne said on the news, the X-Men have been hiding you for years. You’ve an arrest history as long as my arm- murder- drug-trafficking- r-rape-”

“Say what the fuck?” Logan snarled and the claws came loose. The rest of the X-Men moved forward, obviously preparing themselves for trouble, Osborne’s shit-eating grin widening in glee as he indicated to his security detail to hold them back. Inwardly Tony sighed: Logan was absolutely playing into his hands with this big n’ scary routine, and while the feral didn’t care one look at Ororo Munroe was enough to convince Stark that she did. Just as he was sure the rest of mutant-kind would do if this shit made the nightly news. Jubes and Kitty were moving forward, trying to get to their pack-leader but one of Osborne’s Secret Service goombahs stood directly in their path: They couldn’t reach him. And since Osborne knew that those girls couldn’t afford to attack a member of the armed forces on national television it was a good bet they wouldn’t get there any time soon. Which left precisely one person who was near enough to Logan to have a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting through to him-

And that person was Tony Stark.

Yay me, he thought dismally. And sundry other epithets that mean I rock.

“Take it easy, man,” he said then.

Moving forward and putting his hand on Logan’s shoulder as if he wasn’t at all nervous. Which was a crock because Logan was one scary fucker, but if there was one thing Stark understood it was the power of a photo op. “C’mon, Wolvie,” he said softly, “That moron’s nothing but a bigot. It wasn’t him Rogue kicked all that butt for, now was it? It wasn’t him she went into Hell to find. So who cares what he thinks?”

“They’re trying to make out that I hurt my girls,” the feral bit out. It really seemed to be bothering him, and from the corner of his eye Tony saw Daken grin. “They’re saying that I abused Marie, that I’m like Daken-”

“You are like Daken,” Osborne called from that nice safe bosom of his body-guards. Jubes and Kitty glared at him with unmitigated loathing. “You’re nothing but an animal, nothing but a menace to society, you proved it today.” He began to pace, hands behind his back, playing to the cameras. Liberally pouring salt onto a wound which was still so clearly fresh. “Everyone knows the stories about the Wolverine,” Osborne was saying, “Everyone’s heard of the things you’ve done. The mighty Wolverine, the man who brought down the Hulk! The man who brought Elektra Natchios back from The Hand! At least when you tagged yourself to the X-jet today you actually left witnesses-”

“That was Captain Dumb-Ass over there!” Jubes snarled.

Osborne’s look was patronising. “Prove it,” he said. “Go ahead, Missy. Prove it. Prove that it wasn’t your beloved Wolverine hanging from that plane. Prove it wasn’t your beloved Wolverine endangering all those civilians in Central Park. Because a mutant’s word won’t stand up in a court of law-”

“Then how about my word?” Pepper snapped. She’d darted through the security detail’s perimeter and she was holding her Blackberry like it was a lethal weapon. Despite her frail build in that moment Tony thought she looked scary-and sexy- as Hell. “I’m an upstanding citizen, and I’m pretty sure I pay my taxes,” she was saying. “And yes, I work for a war-monger like Tony Stark but someone’s got to keep him out of trouble and I guess that someone is me.” There was a smattering of polite laughter at her joke, but then she’d known there would be: She learned to play the press from a master after all. “I’m a good, decent, law-abiding citizen, Senator Osborne. I’m one of the people you say you’re trying to defend. And you know what?” She stepped in front of Osborne, towering over him. Tony sent up a silent prayer of thanks to whoever had invented four inch heels. “I know that it was Daken and not Logan who kidnapped me,” she said. “Tortured me. And then tried to murder a kid to gain leverage against his enemies in a remarkably public display of spite.” Osborne narrowed his eyes at the unspoken accusation but said nothing. He really didn’t need anyone discussing that. “And do you know how I know? Because I was there for it. I have the bruises, the cuts. The burns. The photos. And if you want to call me a liar, or try to keep this circus going on any longer then bring it on Normie.

Because I work for Tony Stark and believe me, you don’t scare me-”

And with that the Kick-Ass Goddess formerly known as Pepper Potts stalked away from Senator Osborne, leaving him to nurse what was left of his balls in peace.

The clearing collectively… blinked then.

Took a deep breath. Let the reality of what Pepper had said sink in. Logan seemed to recollect himself, letting go of Callum and moving slowly to stand beside Kit and Jubilee. Muttering about how blind the boy was and wondering what Marie ever saw in him, though the rage seemed well and truly dissipated by now. As if she’d been prompted, little Meghan Wynne darted forward and wrapped her arms around Logan, smushing her young face into his side and saying something which made him smile. Her little wings flapping- she’d already started healing- making her look cuter than a barrel of kittens playing with a bunny-wabbit. On Christmas Day. Wolverine wrapped one of his big arms around her, pressing a heavy hand to the top of her head and the cameras went wild, camera flashes appearing everywhere. The image of the tiny girl and the huge feral the kind of thing that made the cover of Life magazine. Osborne glared, looking about as far from his happy place as Tony could ever remember him looking, making for his limousine-

And as he did so, he turned to look at Daken now everyone else was focussed on Logan and Pixie.

Giving the feral a tiny, almost imperceptible nod-

Which was when all Hell broke loose.

Tony only had a second to register that gesture, to think how weird it was and how unfortunate that they didn’t have it on camera and then something- some terrifying, out of control thing- seemed to leap in his chest. Dart through his blood-stream, moving through him with the strength of a hurricane. Smashing his self-control to smithereens. And it wasn’t only him, everyone present felt it: They were all suddenly bent double, their eyes rolled back in their heads, their bodies twitching in barely suppressed rage. Some of the reporters fighting each other, going at their colleagues with the callousness of wild dogs. Even Logan seemed to experience it though not as badly as the others, and instinctively he drew Pixie to him. Watched as Jubes made for Gambit, as Kitty made for Colossus and Storm. With the distraction in place Daken easily slipped his bonds, knocking his guards away and trying to run. Letting his claws loose and slashing them at Pepper, hissing and spitting at Pixie as she sheltered behind Wolverine. Tony forced himself to his feet, trying to combat the emotions careening through him- where did this rage come from? Where? And why did it arrive so suddenly?- and forced himself towards his beloved Girl Friday. Told himself to ignore the urge to attack everything in sight- Including her. He felt rather than saw a shadow- make that two- pass behind him, heard the lightest of sounds as two bodies leapt lightly into the fray. Felt a sudden easing of this new emotion, though it was by no means gone. And then before anyone could know what was happening he saw Marie grabbing a hold of Daken, Mystique behind her. Knocking him down and securing him more tightly as the Porn Smurf snickered about who was whose bitch now-

“That’s enough playing with people’s hormones, darlin’,” Marie cooed then. “It ain’t mannerly.”

“What kept you?” Pepper grinned.