Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made from this work.
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It was the classic little black dress that she'd been introduced to as a child, as a girl who wondered why boys had to be so dense while men were a taboo until she was older. It was an excuse to wear opera gloves once more if just so she could channel her own inner Hepburn. It was perfect, pricy, and cost her damn near every last dime, nickle and quarter she had to her name until payday.
Marie couldn't show it to Jubilee for one reason and one reason alone, because the she'd know it wasn't just dancing. As much as the girl was known to be a gossip, she could keep a secret when it counted. Clarice, a troublemaker in her own right at times, was still a shy girl at heart and wouldn't risk hurting anyone with a slip of the tongue, so Marie was happy to go shopping with her knowing she'd keep it a secret.
"It's beautiful!" Clarice gasped.
"I'm glad Jean's handy with a needle, I just need one favour from you." Marie couldn't risk a custom fitting, which of course had puzzled the lady at the boutique who swore she had plenty of room in her bookings.
Taking a trip to the washroom together, they weren't so far away from the school that Clarice couldn't spirit something away if she just knew where she was going. Purple light bathed the bathroom and soon the only evidence that it wasn't just dancing was safe and secure back in her room, swearing Clarice to silence with a finger pressed to her own lips.
"Kitty owes me forty bucks."
"Why?" Marie had her suspicions, but it begged the question anyway.
Standing on her tiptoes, Clarice leaned in for a chaste kiss to her cheek, everything said in that one little spark that stole away surface thoughts, emotions, and brought a flush of power that wasn't her own. Marie didn't know what to say, she hadn't ever seen Logan as anything other than a friend until the other night, was she blind to her own heart?
Or was it just a happy coincidence that lined up with the silly thoughts of young ladies reading into meaningless things. Whatever the case might be, Clarice would be forty bucks richer once her secret was a secret no more. Taking their seats to find drinks waiting for them, blessedly Jubilee had business of her own that kept her busy. Dress shopping with Clarice had been a treat that saw them both with something to wear, though for Clarice it had been a lovely green dress picked straight off the rack.
The restaurant they now found themselves at had been a mainstay of Westchester for years, the decor trapped in the Eighties sense of sophisticated right along with the menu. The sign outside said Fine Dining in a flowery script, but everything inside was just fine. That they were still filling seats and the reservation book meant they were doing something right, this generation and the last, a family restaurant with its history told on the walls in local commerce awards and framed newspaper articles.
"Mommy's back!" Jubilee cheered, the brass bell at the door heralding her arrival.
"Who's the hell's the father? You haven't even had a boyfriend yet." Marie teased.
"Just call me a single mom then, Wolvie's my baby." Jubilee huffed, setting down a few shopping bags from the local pet store.
"He's your pet." Clarice said as she joined on in the teasing.
"I feed him, I bathe him, and he keeps me up at night. He's my baby." Jubilee listed her points by counting fingers.
"She does have to find a babysitter before she can go out these days." Clarice conceded, having been a willing babysitter herself.
"I'm just glad he's adopted." Marie couldn't resist even if it earned her one of those fingers in particular flipped off in her direction.
A waitress not much younger than them greeted them again, having been told earlier they were waiting on someone before ordering. Menus were handed out in the usual routine of checking to see if anything new had actually been added. Old favourites were picked after finding there were some comforting constants in life, like how they could count on the cooks in the kitchen to make everything perfect while they chatted up the wait staff.
"Where's your stuff?" Jubilee asked, noisily slurping at her shake.
Mouthing a silent Home with a look to the other patrons of the restaurant, Marie gave a pointed look to Clarice that said how. It was a good fib to stifle any further questions from Jubilee, the girl could be a real snoop when she wanted to be.
"Ah shit." Marie muttered as their three phones started vibrating.
That all three of them were getting a text meant it was a little extra circular work, knowing that at least one of them would reply rather than bear a guilty heart at pretending they didn't get it.
"Oh, it's just a pick up. Ooo, now I'm interested. Staff not students, two of them." Jubilee scrolled along through the text Scott had sent.
"James and Bishop?" Clarice read aloud, sounding interested herself.
"No pictures, lame. I hate holding up signs." Jubilee grumbled, sending off a reply that was all thumbs as she took another sip of her shake.
"At least we got time ta enjoy ourselves, of course you know what this means right?" Marie added, her smile leading them on.
"Woo, writing off the gas as a company expense! I love road trips on somebody else's dime."
As much as leather uniforms, grading exams and weekly hours clocked in at the Teachers Gym, there was a credit card they all carried that said they weren't students anymore. It was a responsibility as much as anything else, one they would never think to abuse however tempting it might be. But that didn't mean they couldn't treat the new arrivals to coffee and a bite to eat after their flight, a thought they all shared peeking at another from across the table.
"Might need a few things, could be like that guy Logan hated, ya know, came in with just the shirt on his back." Jubilee mused.
"Oh gawd Logan despised Remy!" Marie laughed.
"What ever happened to him?" Clarice stabbed at her soda, sinking ice cubs with the tip of her straw, lost to memories of the slick charmer.
"Something tells me only Ro knows, all I know is he just up and left one day before sun up." Remembering that foggy morning, the last Jubilee ever saw of him were the taillights of his bike, listening out on the front steps until only birdcall could be heard.
Sharing a sigh between them, laughter burst forth that fell to a fit of giggles realizing they'd all been caught up in Remy's spell as much as any other girls at the school, them and a few ladies. Eating and sharing stories of the infamous Gambit, the tip they left behind was their gas money to top up the tank on the way home. They wouldn't need the cash now, paying it forward to the waitress with a word to buy the cook staff a round once quitting time came.
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"Dibs on the cute one." Clarice whispered behind her latte.
"That's fine as long as I get the grumpy one." Holding the sign high over her head in a burst of sudden enthusiasm, Jubilee jumped for attention from the pair that waded through the other travellers.
"I can't believe you two." Marie hissed, except that she could.
They fed off each other, Clarice growing bolder with Jubilee there to urge her on, and Jubilee having an audience in Clarice who saw no wrong in her crazy stunts. Rubbing her eyes and hoping tonight wouldn't be one of those nights, Marie tried to look suitably proper as the only mature face of the Charles Xavier School for Gifted Children present.
"James?"
The one Clarice had called cute raised his hand as if it were role call, leaving Bishop to be the grumpy one Jubilee had an eye for. They couldn't have been more different from another in appearance, James favouring utilitarian clothes with an emphasis on black. Where James was wiry and lithe, Bishop was built, a muscular man who wasted nothing in his movements. Sporting a great coat that cut an intimidating figure, the crowd had parted for Bishop while James fell into step behind him.
"So that makes you Bishop?" Marie said in greeting.
"It's been a long flight." Bishop offered in lieu of a greeting, his eyes trailing off to the crowd.
"Well then boys, if you got your stuff we can get headed back to the school any time yer ready."
Leading the way, Marie caught a glimpse of pack tactics played out in the reflection of a shop window that preyed on travellers having nowhere else to turn. Clarice fell in step with James while Jubilee flanked Bishop, the men seemingly oblivious to their fate.
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"Seems I remember coming here pretty often with you."
Not much had changed at the Roadhouse for all the years they'd been coming, maybe a couple of new brews were on tap and a string of hits joining the classics in the juke box, but for the most part it looked as much as it had the first time Logan walked through the doors.
"And I seem to recall the number of times I wound up in a fight because a lady being spoken for was a challenge, not a reason to quit flirting." Lining up his shot at the pool table, Hank offered a wink with his break.
The sharp crack of the cue set the balls rolling, daring around the table and bouncing from bunkers in their mad dash.
"Ya always did have a little beast in ya." Logan laughed, slugging back swig of beer while he waited for Hank to screw up.
"Back then you were very lucky I was able to keep the beast at bay, though I must admit it was a wonderful exercise in self control."
He could tell the tourists and people passing through by the looks they gave Hank as they walked through the door, it was old hat for the locals who came to wet their whistle and get away from their better half, gents and dames alike.
"I wonder what the fate of that shot would have been if we weren't so intently observing it." Hank mused as a striped ball hung at the edge of a pocket, a breath all it would have taken to sink it.
"All the shoulda, woulda, coulda ain't helping you now." Leaning in and calling his shot, Logan started his counterattack with an easy one, they had money on the table after all.
"Now just what is this I hear about you having a date planned for Friday." Hank remarked, timing his comment perfectly as so to ruin a shot.
Letting go of an aggravated sigh that bordered on a growl, Logan found his beer as Hank took the table. He'd expected Jean to find out, even expected Chuck to come on by for a game o' chess while whittling down a bottle of scotch, but Hank surprised him.
"Jubilation happened to strike up a conversation, she was curious about places someone might enjoy an evening out in the classical sense. Though it was Jean who asked a favour with securing a reservation." Sinking a ball, Hank met his gaze across the table.
"Lil bit o' dancing doesn't make it a date." Logan grunted.
"Of course not, and I wouldn't condemn you if it was more than just dancing. After all, we've had this conversation before, just never like this."
Not since he'd come back, fifty years worth of that other road travelled back in the blink of an eye. It was hard at first, thinking himself two different men wrestling for control. The road made it easier, getting away from it all and starting from scratch. When a tank of gas wasn't enough, it was time to visit all the old battlefields to chase his ghosts. These days he saw eye to eye with everything that had happened since the Seventies, but he was still a man out of time in one sense.
Everyone got older while he stayed the same, watching Scott, Jean and Ororo grow up before his eyes. Hank wasn't just whistling dixie, they'd had that conversation before alright, except instead of Marie it'd been about Jean until it became about Ororo. It was a friend looking out for his friends and making sure they weren't making a mistake, succumbing to the destructive urges of ones id as Hank had once phrased it.
"If there's something there, there's something there." Logan said, echoing the words he'd spoken before in those conversations that had long since played out.
A spark as Jean had called it, love like he'd never known except his gut called him a liar. There was still history lost to him, the elusive kind that came in a moment's sense of deja vu, everything that happened until he woke up with no idea who he was and a mess of metal inside that made him damn near indestructible. He'd loved once before, been loved, and it gave him what every man needed, just a bit of hope to cling to that he'd be so lucky again.
"It seems it's your turn Logan, why don't you figure out your shot while I go fetch us a couple more beers." Propping up his cue stick, Hank excused himself after finishing off his half empty glass.
Had he been watching the game instead of lost to thought then he might know if Hank had really gotten on the wrong side of Lady Luck herself, the shot seemed impossible to screw up, but there at a corner pocket sat the cue kissing up to the eight ball that just hadn't wanted to go in.
"Damned if I do, damned if I don't." Logan mused, seeing a shit shot waiting for him.
Shaking his head with a sigh, one good stomp sunk the ball while he put back his beer. Game over and digging out a ten for the next one, he found himself smiling back at the happy faces he found in his wallet. It was happening all over again, realizing they'd gone and grown up when he wasn't looking. At least this time they had a future to look forward to, safe from the mud and the blood and the ash of a war they had no business fighting in beyond the fact that the world had let them down.
"To the small victories." Drinking down his last swallow, it was time to put the past behind him where it belonged.
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