Title: Thorny With a Chance of Roses

Fandom: X-Men: Evolution

Characters: X23, Storm/Ororo Munroe

Prompt: #70, Storm

Rating: G

Summary: Ororo bails Laura out of trouble at the mansion, but not without a price.

Author Notes: I'm back. I'm down with medical issues for this entire summer and tired of drawing, so I'm reviving my old fanfic 100 claim on X23/Laura. This is the first thing I've written in over a year, and it shows. I've changed a few things- I'm trying to make Laura a little less personable than I have in the past, among other things- but I hope you'll still find aspects to enjoy in my writing.

Laura skidded smoothly around a corner in the mansion, and spotted Ororo Munroe slightly too late. The resulting collision sent plant soil and fertilizer everywhere, and both women fell in a heap on the floor.

"Hello, Laura. Why are you running and from whom?" Ororo asked conversationally as they extricated their limbs from each other. Laura looked up at her through her dark hair, eyes wide.

"Don't tell Logan. I have already filled my quota of violent mishaps for the month and he will get angry at me if I go over it."

"What did you do?" Ororo said, resigned to another social disaster that would require an adult's supervision in fixing. It was her turn to be the ombudsman, Hank and the Professor had just reminded her last week.

"I went over it," Laura, still on her hands and knees on the floor, crawled over to the corner she'd just turned and peeked around it. "I am being pursued. Four teenagers are mad at me. They are slow but persistent in chase, I have discovered."

Ororo digested this as she rose to her feet and brushed the soil off of her gardening clothes. "How far over your violence quota have you gone, child?"

Laura stared off into space for a moment as she counted in her head. "Probably very. It is hard to attach a point system. They are younger mutants, so they would be worth less points. One is Amara. She would probably be worth fewer points then Rahne due to Rahne's sense of smell and control of her lycanthropic capabilities-"

"Yes, but what exactly did you do to them?"

Laura at least had the grace to look mildly contrite. "If you put a pink shirt in the washing machine with blue pants, everything will turn purple."

"But why would four people be mad at you for that?" Ororo coaxed the story out of Laura as angry voices drew nearer. Apparently, Laura had decided to try doing laundry again even though she was banned from it. Instead of using her own clothes, she did a test run with whatever clothing she found laying in the various bathrooms in the wings of the mansion. Her chief calculation error had been in assuming that three teenage girls and Bobby cared as little about clothing as she did, and now there was an impromptu angry mob after her.

"You can't run forever!"

"My favorite shirt was in that load you ruined!"

The calls were definitely getting closer, and Laura was poised to dart off recklessly down the hall. Ororo had an idea, and then smiled to herself. She calmly started walking up the hall towards the group of sprinting teens while Laura watched suspiciously from the adjoining corridor. They slowed down upon seeing a teacher present.

"Hello Bobby, Amara, Rahne, Jubilee."

"Hello, Ms. Munroe," they replied calmly, if slightly anxious to be on their way.

"You shouldn't run in the halls. Someone may get injured."

"Sorry, Ms. Munroe," they replied.

"Ms. Munroe?" Amara spoke up. "We're looking for Laura. Have you seen her around?"

Bobby caught on. "Yes. We kind of need…help with something. That only she can help with. It's inconvenient like that. Otherwise we'd ask you. But we need her."

They waited a moment.

"So we're looking for her," Rahne concluded helpfully. They all nodded earnestly. Ororo exercised all her self-control to not start laughing, and instead managed a reasonably believable sigh.

"I believe she went through that window a moment ago. I was just coming to shut it. It looks like it may rain." She made it look like it may rain as they went to investigate the open window at the far end of the hall.

"Huh." Bobby decided. "Well, if you see her can you let us know? Because we still need to show her something."

"No, we still need help," Amara corrected him.

"Oh, right. We still need help. We have to show her the thing we need her help with, that's why I said that."

"Of course," Ororo nodded solemly while around the corner Laura rolled her eyes. The teens shuffled off after sheepishly closing the window, and Ororo walked back to Laura, whose eyes were narrowed in suspicion.

"What's the price?" Laura asked in a low tone.

"It is not unreasonable. Help me gather this soil and assist me in putting it where it is supposed to be. That is all. And I will neglect to mention this mishap to Logan and talk to the Professor instead."

"You are still going to rat me out." Laura said, swirling a finger in the dirt on the floor pensively, trying to find the loopholes.

"Of course. You did exceed your quota for social mishaps, as well as ruin a considerable amount of clothing and perhaps an expanse of hardwood flooring as well. It's fortunate that I was going to mix this fertilizer and this soil anyway or you would possibly be punished for that as well. Professor Xavier will have to be informed of this, however he may be persuaded- knowing Logan's temper- to exclude him. If you assist me for a few hours this afternoon."

Laura glanced at the dirt, and then nodded agreement.

"Very well. Now if you wouldn't mind brushing the soil off of yourself and stepping out of the pile, Laura, I would like to sweep it up."

"Should I get a broom?" Laura asked hesitantly, trying to remember how to undo messes instead of create them, but Ororo had already gathered the dirts with a small indoor tornado and funneled them neatly back into the burlap sacks they'd been spilled from. Ororo smiled gently at her.

"No thank you. However you may carry one of these bags for me."

They each picked up a bag and Ororo led Laura down several halls, up two flights of stairs, down another hall that Laura had mentally mapped as where the teachers sleep- including Logan's, whose room she subtly picked up her pace while passing- and then up a final staircase that spiraled up behind a linen closet-shaped door. Ororo raised a hand above her to open a hatch, which turned into the floor of a well-lit, surprisingly humid renovated attic that was completely full of plants. After the mansion had exploded, one of the suggestions that was used was expanding Ororo's indoor garden. It was located centrally on one of the rear wings of the mansion, and the entire ceiling was glass windows that sloped gently up one half of the room, peaked in the center, and sloped gently back down the other side.

Ororo set her bag down next to a few large, deep, empty, rectangular pots, and Laura set the second beside it silently, looking around. She had seen this room before, but it was from the roof and she had been preoccupied with trying to kill Logan at the time and wasn't able to fully appreciate it. She did so now, walking around the tables with pots on them and large plants on the floor. There was a surprising variety of foliage, and if she was inclined to daydreaming it would have been easy to pretend she was in a special indoor jungle.

There was one leafy plant in a large pot on the center of a table where it would be directly in the sun for a good portion of the day. There were big round leaves on it and tiny green buds forming in places, but they were too small to identify and Laura didn't know what it would grow to be anyway. She hadn't been trained to identify flower buds unless they were poisonous ones that could be used to kill people. It seemed unlikely that a kind, gentle woman like Ororo Munroe would grow something like that.

"Over here, please, Laura," Ororo said from a corner. "Come learn what this soil you spilled is for."