Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made from this work.
Slinking through the shadows, she crept from window to window into one pool of darkness to the next making her way through the mansion. Pausing to listen at the threshold of a doorway, nary a sound could be heard but her own quiet breath and her heart in her chest pattering away to the thrill she lived for. The alarms had been bypassed and the cameras fed an ingenious fabrication to let the guards enjoy their sleepy posts.
She had spent weeks planning this heist, the word itself easily rolling over her tongue pleasurably with the allusions to the days when daring robberies and brazen burglaries graced the headline news leaving authorities baffled. She was a thief, among those few left in the world that paid heed to the old ways of business, a code of honour in a game of cat and mouse of the highest stakes. These days most robberies were disgraceful acts of brutes bungling in with guns and violence, paramilitary invading homes to robe the rich and powerful of third world regimes.
"There you are my beauty." Ororo "Storm" Munroe purred spying her quarry and prize.
It was a diamond that had been paid for in blood from the depths of Africa, a trophy of a man who cared not for the suffering it had caused. It sat in a case on a pillow of silk, lesser gems littering it as if peasants in the grace of royalty. Creeping across the floor ignoring the works of art that lined the walls or other trappings of culture and sophistication, she had eyes alone for the diamond.
"Don't worry, I've come to take you away from your gilded cage." Ororo softly said in the quiet of the gallery.
Looking to the pedestal again and investigating it in full, she found naught a thing wrong with every bit of intel and information she had on its clever trap. Reaching about her neck, she found the beaded chain and pulled the key free. A forgery of the highest caliber, it was still warm from having been hidden down past the neck of the vest she wore. Crouching, she looked down to the base and found the keyhole, looking little more than another of the brass tacks for the leather that wound about the stand.
"Third from the bottom, second from the top, and..." Ororo said as she pulled the others free, a tiny click heard.
Turning the key, the alarm for the pedestal was disabled, the glass case free to be lifted. Looking to the diamond again from behind the glass, she let herself admire it and every bit of conniving that had brought her to it. Gripping the glass in hand, she was about to raise it when she heard something that put her on guard, the crack and hiss of a wooden match being struck. Anywhere else she would have enjoyed the sound, the scent in the air that soon mingled with the aroma of expensive Cuban cigars. Smiling, she turned to look into the dark shadow where an ember glowed and flared to the first few puffs.
"How did you know?" Ororo asked.
Stepping into the moonlight spilling from the window, dressed in a black sweater and slacks, his usually wild hair slicked back, he looked to her and then the diamond before enjoying another pull of his cigar.
"Anything else would have been too easy." James "Logan" Howlett remarked with a casual shrug.
"Oh? Nothing in our conversations tipped you off?" Ororo asked, her hands taken from the case to just lean against it, the chill glass pressing against her chest where it lay exposed with the zipper was drawn down to a V.
"Nothing, you were always good at makin' sure not to mix Business and Pleasure." Logan said, walking up to the case with an appreciative gaze straying to her.
"So what now Logan? Are you going to take me in?" Ororo asked playfully, standing up to hold her hands out to him in a pantomime of being shackled.
Logan looked to her with his grey eyes meeting her own blue, pulling his cigar from his lips to flick ash to the expensive carpeting below. Were not all the pieces protected in their own climate controlled cases she would have shrieked at the thought of him smoking in the presence of such treasures, but then he was no fool himself.
"Well Darlin', bein' as I'm on this one pro bono as they say...I came to an understanding with my employer." Logan said, reaching into his pocket.
Just as she was known the world over by her alias of Storm, thief extraordinaire, he was the most feared hunter hired by the top insurance companies of the world to either recover stolen property, catch thieves, or in some very special cases prevent thefts. With a background in the Canadian Special Forces JTF2, having trained around the world with a special time spent in Japan, it was no wonder she hadn't noticed him in that pool of darkness that he called home as easily as she herself.
"And what is that understanding?" Ororo asked, suddenly very interested in just what could have him waive his exorbitant wage.
"I give you a choice..." Logan said as he placed a velvet case atop the glass before her.
"What is this?" Ororo asked, reaching for it only to have her hand taken in his.
"A trade and an offer, you can either have that diamond there and we have to do this the hard way. Or..." Logan said as he snapped the case open, revealing a ring with a weighty diamond solitaire.
"You can have this one, and as they used to say, I make an honest woman out of you." Logan said as he fell to his knee.
Ororo couldn't stifle her gasp, her hand raised to her lips as he still held one in his. Looking to him as he knelt in the moonlight, he gazed at her as he had all those nights they had laid together in hotels around the world, burning desire and a plea held in their depths.
"You...are you asking me...?" Ororo asked, a nod the only answer she received.
That she had fallen in love with him over the years she'd known him hadn't been anything she had ever planned at first, another game played finding the seductive thrill of it all just too much to deny as she romanced the very man who had hunted her and her ilk. He was driven and passionate, hiding a kind and sensitive soul behind a gruff facade. Feeling the first tears trailing down her cheeks she couldn't find the breath to answer, just nodding and watching as he eased a glove free to slip the ring on her delicate and dexterous finger.
They left together into the night, the only evidence they had ever been there an empty velvet box sitting atop the unlocked case.
Three Weeks Later
Walking through the airport, Ororo had been anxiously awaiting this day since she had seen Logan off in Europe. With her daughter at her side she had to fight not to just rush off to the doors. Rogue, adopted years ago, had been an orphan she had easily fallen in love with after finding her living by petty theft and her wits alone. It reminded her all too much of her own start into that life, an urchin lost to the streets of Cairo. Sixteen now, she looked a beauty compared to the dirty and scared girl she had found in a bus station.
"Isn't Canada cold all year Momma?" Rogue asked.
Rogue had been enthused and ecstatic at the news of the engagement, but in the weeks since with the revelation that she would be moving she had clearly been less so. In the final days as the moving trucks came to pack up their things, she had been outright opposed and Ororo couldn't fault her. She'd be moving away from her friends, the few she had, and the life she had come to know in Mississippi.
"Only during winter." Ororo replied, tactfully withholding the chaotic weather Calgary oft suffered from.
The trip through customs was old hat for her and her daughter, always packing light and never having to suffer through the baggage claim, their carry on the only thing they needed with everything else sent ahead. Walking out to the entrance of the Airport Ororo saw him there with a child at his side who sullenly held a sign that bore her name, Munroe, soon enough to find Howlett at the end once they wedded.
"Who's the boy?" Rogue asked all too loudly, Ororo having to work hard not to giggle.
Logan grinned, looking to the child who turned indignant and looked to be searching for words to express just so with sputtered gasps and starts. Rogue looked to them completely indifferent, wondering just what it was she had said.
"I'm a girl you...you...skunk headed...bimbo!" The girl apparent yelled, throwing the sign down and stalking up to stare challengingly at Rogue with her hands on her hips.
"Coulda fooled me." Rogue said, a single finger pointed to the girl's forehead to push her back.
"Jubes Darlin', tone it down." Logan said, stepping up to his daughter.
"But she called me a boy!" Jubilee protested, turning to her father in challenge.
"Well maybe if ya didn't dress like one." Logan teased, earning a swift kick to his shin before Jubilee stalked off to the jeep.
Ororo tread up to him, wrapping her arms about his neck and kissing him tenderly having longed to do so for the weeks they'd been apart. She could catch the dismayed mutterings of Jubilee and a quiet 'Go Mom' from Rogue, feeling her toes curling as he took her into his arms. The flash of a camera came, both her and Logan looking to spy Rogue with her phone in hand playing photographer for their reunion.
"Ready to go?" Logan asked in the closeness of the embrace.
"I believe I am." Ororo said, a kiss placed to his lips before they reluctantly parted.
Logan helped both her and Rogue with their luggage, tossing them into the back and pulling some netting over them. Stepping up to the passenger door, Rogue stood there stubbornly looking to the back seat at the girl who met her gaze with as much fire and ire.
"I'm not sitting with her." Rogue said.
"Well if you would like the front seat that is fine with me, it can give you some time to get to know Logan better, and myself to get to know Jubilation." Ororo said.
"Oh my god Dad! You told her that?" Jubilee shrieked, kicking the back of his seat.
"It's your name isn't it?" Logan asked with a look to the rearview.
"I think it is very beautiful, but if you would prefer I did not use it..." Ororo remarked as she slipped into the back, Jubilee looking up to her under a shock of ebon locks looking suddenly sheepish.
"Well...maybe it doesn't sound so bad when you say it..." Jubilee conceded.
"Wonderful." Ororo said with a smile, the matter settled.
The drive home took them to the banks of a river with a large rustic house nestled within a grove of old growth pine and aspen. With a fieldstone facade and large timbers on show, it looked like it would have been just as home within the mountains that could be seen off on the horizon.
"It's more beautiful than I thought, the photo you showed me didn't do it justice." Ororo said as she walked up to the flagstone path.
"Glad you like it." Logan said, stepping up to her to wrap an arm about her waist.
Jubilee ran past them on a beeline to the porch, a pendant waved at a small black box by the door to throw it open a second later, slamming it loudly.
"Oh now I'm interested just to see what sort of security you have, key fob entry? I take it you have some for Rogue and myself?" Ororo purred as Logan dug into his pocket to pull out two key rings.
Taking them in hand, with Rogue walking by looking impressed by the vista Ororo dangled one before her eyes, her daughter taking before wandering off around the property.
"Well, shall we?" Ororo asked, about to walk back to the Jeep when Logan refused to let go.
With a surprising bit of speed and grace, he took her into his arms and walked with her up to the door. Laughing as she realized just what he was up to, she held her key fob out with the little led turning green after a second. Throwing open the door, Logan walked her over the threshold with a grin set upon his lips.
"Welcome home Darlin'." Logan said.
Jubilee had found her life thrown into chaos since her Dad had come home almost three weeks ago. He wasn't his usual self, he was smiling more or just sitting out on the back porch staring off at the mountains with a beer warm and untouched beside him. It wasn't that he was ignoring her, but she had to practically (once literally) smack him to get his attention. A week ago he had told her and she just couldn't believe it, he was getting married, last she heard he didn't even have a girlfriend and here he was getting married!
It wasn't that she didn't want him to be happy, but a bit of warning would have helped, maybe even meeting her a few times. Instead it almost sounded like a joke gone bad, 'Surprise, you're getting a mom!'. As if to make things worse, she had a daughter too, one that was older and prettier and very well endowed and, well she could carry on with that line of thought but then she'd just want to go punch something.
The moving trucks had come a fews days back, men trampling through the house with boxes and furniture, setting it all up in what had once been guest bedrooms. Worst of all her sister to be was right beside her, what had been her dad's office before it got moved out to the loft above the garage. Sitting on her bed throwing a ball at the wall just to work out some of her frustration, her door was thrown open with Rogue glaring at her.
"Ya got three seconds ta stop that or I swear I'll thump ya." Rogue yelled.
"Try it." Jubilee spat, throwing the ball again.
Rogue caught it, slamming the door even as Jubilee got off her bed. Tearing it open and trying the knob of the neighbouring room, she was shocked to find it locked.
"What the hell! You get a lock on your door?!" Jubilee yelled, pounding loudly.
With her fist red and sore and only loud music answering her, Jubilee stalked off down the stairs. Spotting her dad out on the back deck with Ororo she stormed off to confront him on an outstanding injustice she had just discovered.
"Dad!" Jubilee cried, an arm pointing off vaguely to where her room was.
"Yes Jubes?" Logan asked.
"Why does she get a lock on her door!?" Jubilee growled, her brow furrowed in frustration.
"Because she's sixteen and I figured it'd be good to give her a feelin' o' security and privacy while she gets settled in." Logan explained.
"What about my privacy!? I'm twelve! I'm a woman now, not a kid. You still just come barging in, what if I'm...I'm...?" Jubilee started, running out of steam as her train of thought got derailed with how angry she was.
"Changing?" Ororo supplied, Jubilee looking to her as some of her anger deflated.
"Yeah! Or...stuff." Jubilee said, turning back to her father.
"Or stuff?" Logan asked, Jubilee going red in the face.
"Stuff, yeah." Jubilee said with a stubborn nod.
Logan looked to Ororo to find her just watching Jubilee with a smile, turning back to face his daughter.
"Alright Darlin', I'll put a lock on your door on the condition that ya only use it when your changing, or stuff. Otherwise ya keep it unlocked, ya got a bad habit o' not hearin' me sometimes." Logan relented, having to chuckle at the look of disbelief on his daughter.
"Sure, I promise! Thank you, thank you!" Jubilee cheered, tackling him in a hug before racing back off into the house.
Left alone on the back deck, Ororo looked to him and he could almost read her thoughts, having learned just how she thought over the years.
"Lemme guess, when I said she was spirited?" Logan asked.
"You did not lie, maybe you might have found a stronger word." Ororo confessed, reaching for her glass of lemonade.
"Might have been spirited a few years back, what with her being all womanly now, she's right ornery." Logan said, finding his own glass.
"I confess, she's handling this better than I would have thought. I still cannot believe you only told her a week ago." Ororo said, Logan just shrugging.
"She's lucky I didn't tell her at the airport, didn't know how to tell her so I just threw it out one dinner. Course I shoulda rightly waited for her to finish with her mouthful, damn near had to give her the Heimlich." Logan explained, Ororo just looking at him in wonder.
"Poor child." Ororo said.
"Lets see how long ya keep saying that once she gets used ta ya, I always taught her to speak her mind, might just have backfired on me." Logan chuckled.
Seeing her smile and turn back to the vista of the distant mountains, Logan joined her in admiring the view as much as he had been the company he shared. For years he wanted to bring her here if just to share it. He'd had the house built here back when he adopted Jubilee, land he'd owned for years figuring he'd do something with it someday. With another sip of his lemonade, he still couldn't believe how things had turned out in the end, with his hand finding hers easily.
It wasn't Mississippi, but being so close to the river made it easier as she sat in the bay window looking out over the property. Her room had been set up just as she had it, a picture left on her desk as a clue to just how it had been pulled off, all her most personal belongings still in boxes for her to tend to. Sitting by the window she found a gift sitting there for her, from her family to be as the tag read. It had been a pair of binoculars, powerful enough to bring the distant mountains into view. A note inside promised a visit to them come the weekend, finding herself liking the man that had won the heart of her Momma.
Her sister to be though was another matter entirely Rogue thought with a look to the ball next to her, minutes before bouncing against her wall in an irritating beat that drove her mad. She figured Jubilation or Jubes must have been ten, eleven tops, thinking her honestly a boy at first. The little brat had given up trying to get her ball back after she had cranked the radio up, the pounding on the door finally ceased.
Hearing the slamming of a door she figured her little sister to be must have just returned to her room, wondering then if she'd dare play any more games to irritate her. Ten minutes of peace and quiet later left her figuring her threat must have done the trick, walking off to turn down the radio and start to unpack.
"Those damn movers better not have missed anything." Rogue said, using a pen to tear open the packing tape and dump the boxes of clothing onto her bed.
Putting it all back as it had been before she had to live from a bag in a hotel for the last week, by the end of it all she could almost believe she was still back home as she fell onto her bed. The house in Meridian had been the first home she remembered, taken there by the beautiful woman who became her mother one night when she had been shivering in a bus station just trying to stay warm. She couldn't even remember her parents, whoever they had been just left her with a feeling of danger and fear that had her wanting to forget them entirely.
"Rogue?" Ororo called from beyond her door.
Drawn from her thoughts, she tumbled out of bed to unlock the door, her momma standing there looking as radiant as ever.
"They did a good job." Ororo said as she was shown into her daughter's room.
"I'm guessin' it was more Pappy to be than the brat." Rogue said, shutting the door and throwing the latch again.
Ororo looked to her in that way she always did when she was disappointed, no words ever need to be said to reprimand her. Rogue found herself looking to the floor feeling bad for making her mother sad.
"As Logan tells me, she goes by Jubilee or Jubes, please just try to be patient with her." Ororo asked, settling down in the bay window.
"What? Like she was when she was throwing that ball against my wall?" Rogue asked pointing to the offending item.
Ororo picked it up, turning the tennis ball over in her hands before throwing it to Rogue. Catching it, Rogue threw it back in an impromptu game of catch, trying to put off any further conversation.
"Until today that was her wall alone, I know that this is our home now too, but please for me just remember that as much as we need to grow accustomed to this that we're not the only ones." Ororo calmly explained, throwing the ball again.
Staring at the ball, she couldn't argue her mother's point, suddenly imagining how she'd feel if it had been the other way around, having to welcome Logan and the brat to her home in Meridian. Sighing, she threw the ball back to her mother.
"She's had just as long as me to get used to the idea." Rogue said, a few steps taken to her bed to fall into it.
"Actually Logan only told her last week." Ororo confessed, Rogue looking sharply to her.
"What!? Ah hell, is he really that much o' a knucklehead?" Rogue asked.
"Well, I don't think he really can be blamed entirely. He at least told her about you, I only told you that he had a child thinking it too fun to see your first reaction to another." Ororo said, a touch of mischief to her eyes then.
"You coulda at least told me she was a girl, course at a glance ya wouldn't know it." Rogue grumbled.
"Where would the fun in that have been." Ororo teased.
"Ya can really be a b..." Rogue started, a warning look from her mother giving her pause, "Bother sometimes Momma."
Crossing the room to settle on her daughter's bed, Ororo leaned down to place a kiss atop her head before excusing herself. Pausing at the door, she lightly tossed the tennis ball back on the bed.
"When you have a moment, could you give that back to Jubilation. Just be sure to ask her to not throw it at your wall this time." Ororo said, closing the door behind her.
Sitting at her desk watching some anime on her computer, Jubilee heard her door open a crack and figured it must have been her father checking in on her. The knock came as a surprise, spinning her chair around to find her sister to be standing there, her purloined tennis ball in hand.
"What? Come to tease me now? Or ya gonna try and thump me, cause if you think you can I got news for you." Jubilee spouted, her arms crossed across her chest.
"You and what army?" Rogue asked, the gesture returned with a cock of her hips.
"The Canadian Army, Dad was special ops, he showed me how to protect myself incase anyone wanted to get all 'Can you show me on the doll where he touched you' on me." Jubilee threw back, slipping from her seat to stalk up to Rogue.
"Pull the other one brat." Rogue said.
"Scared? Fine, give me my ball back and I won't hurt you." Jubilee said, raising her chin to glare at her.
Clearly irritated, Rogue reached to push her only to find her arm taken, blinking stars away finding herself staring up at a ceiling with Jubilee picking up her ball. Fire in her belly and her blood rushing in answer, Rogue swept a leg out just as her Momma had shown her, toppling Jubilee to the floor, already climbing to her feet to try and pin her.
"That's it!" Jubilee screamed.
Squirming free with a nimbleness that shocked Rogue, swearing she must have damn dislocated the brat's arm at her shoulder, Jubilee got free to tackle her and twist her own arm back. The head butt solved that, Jubilee stumbling back to slam into her dresser.
"Oh, you wanna fight dirty?!" Jubilee yelled.
"Jubilation Lee Howlett get your ass down here yesterday!" Logan bellowed throughout the house.
Glaring at her, Jubilee threw the ball at the wall in an act of defiance before stalking out the door. Left alone Rogue knew if she wasn't hearing her mother yelling that she herself was in deep dog crap too, following down the stairs to see both Logan and Ororo standing at in the entryway to the house. Suddenly the boast of Jubilee didn't seem so much cow patties with the way Logan was standing there looking like a drill sergeant straight out of Hollywood.
"Alright, if you think you're getting a lock on your door now, well you can think again." Logan said with a finger pointed to Jubilee.
"Rogue, you're old enough to know better. I thought we worked this out." Ororo said calmly, just sounded disappointed more than anything.
Both girls looked to their feet, spying another from the corner of their eye. Under the mutual assault of their parents, a momentary truce was formed with Rogue throwing a wink to Jubilee. The girl gave a barely noticed nod, both realizing that the enemy of their enemy as they said, or at the least that if they worked together then they might just get out of this without being grounded until they were eighteen.
"I'm sorry Dad. Rogue didn't believe me so I just was showing her all the stuff ya showed me." Jubilee said.
"Momma, I didn't mean ta get carried away, but that br...Jubilee is feisty, I was just tryin' to give her damn ball back." Rogue added for her mother.
"I promise if we're rough housing again we'll take it to the basement, and wear all that stupid gear you bought me." Jubilee remarked, working her eyes to her most innocent.
"I'll try and remember I'm older than her Momma, that I should be showin' her how to be a lady." Rogue said to Ororo, looking apologetic.
Looking to another, Ororo and Logan just shook their heads, waving their kids off. Still shaking their heads, they walked back off to the back deck where they had been enjoying themselves until the sound of fighting had disturbed them. Standing there at the bottom of the stairs, Jubilee and Rogue looked to another before letting out a relieved sigh.
"Truce brat?" Rogue asked.
"Truce bimbo." Jubilee said holding out her hand.
"Ya think ya could show me that throw?" Rogue asked as they started walking back upstairs.
"Only if you show me that leg sweep, that was killer." Jubilee said, taking the stairs two at a time.
Author's Note : This story came as an idea from another story I started writing, I hope you all enjoy. Brings a bunch of my favourite characters together in an AU setting.