Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made by this work.
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Feeling the burden of the truth he had to tell his wife, Pete had taken a round about way through the school looking for her in all her usual haunts, from the garage to the den to the linen closet up on the third floor where she had her one last stash of treats hidden in what had once been a fuse box for that section of the school in days long past. He could have just called her, but asking after her to everyone he met gave him time to think just what to say when he finally found her.
The Danger Room was empty as was its control booth, the Hangar for the Blackbird full of only ghosts thinking back to the missions he had been on. That was still a conversation to have, his place as an X-man in sharp contrast to his role as a husband and a father to be. Reaching for his phone and pressing the cool glass to his head, he looked down to it with his thumb ready to swipe at the screen and make that call to end his game of hide and seek.
"She's on the roof."
Turning in surprise, he found Rachel standing there looking so small in the cavernous hangar. His worry for his pregnant wife being on the roof of all places was momentarily forgotten as he looked into those eyes that were suddenly too old for the young face they were framed within. They were the eyes of another just then, a lady who had only ever needed to say a few words to him to dispel his doubts.
"Rachel?" Pete asked, two steps taken and a blink leaving him alone.
Spinning about looking for her, he swiped his phone and scrolled through to find the person to first check with as Snowflake. Three rings was all it took.
"Piotr?" Illyana asked after a swallow that carried too well over the phone.
"Is Rachel with you?" Pete asked.
"Yes, she's right here. We're watching movies, we made caramel popcorn, it's so good." Illyana sounded to be stuffing her face again.
He could hear the questions of just 'who' was right there, but thinking again on the spectre he had seen he hoped to sidestep any worry he might cause them. That would be a question for Betsy herself, nothing to bother children with.
"Just remember no sneaking off without asking Ororo first, and then calling me." Pete reminded playing the overbearing brother.
"Pitor..." Illyana groaned dragging out his name, Pete left to picture her roll of the eyes.
"I love you Yana." Pete said, words that never grew old to him.
"You too." Illyana said, at the age of being too self conscious to say aloud the words amongst her friends.
Ending the call and looking again to where he thought he had seen Rachel, he thought now just who it might well have been and had to fight against the tears that she could spare a moment to try and help him even still as he was filled full of doubts anew on just what to say.
"Thank you, Miss Grey."
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The flat roof was a secret most people found out about after enough time, she still remembered her first time squeezing up through a linen closet that had a hatch to a forgotten and dusty attic. Armed with just a flashlight she found down in the junk drawer of the kitchen, the batteries were so weak as to only bring a dim glow just enough to cast it all in menacing shadow. There were wooden rungs nailed right to the wall leading on up to another hatch, the lock broken and shattered long since by a likely other adventurous soul.
Now all it took was just fishing through her keys and taking the proper ladder up that lead to another, still wondering just why she was filled with so much dread and worry suddenly. Putting it off to her hormones or just the thought of all the responsibility of bringing twins in to the world, Jubilee sat there on the warm summer day a Lady of all she surveyed which in this case happened to be the carriage house. The boathouse was hidden by trees, but she could just barely see the dock peeking out past.
"Jubilation?"
"Holy shit!" Jubilee yelped in surprise and shock.
Peeking his head up out of hatch, she turned an accusing finger on him readying for another rant on how someone as big as him shouldn't move that quietly. Yet as she looked into his eyes, her dread doubled and she felt herself crying though she knew not why.
"What is it Pete?" Jubilee asked, her love extracting himself from the hatch with a bit of effort.
That he didn't say anything right away filled her stomach with worry, waiting there safely away from the edges she always loved but having more than herself to think of now. Sitting down with her and wrapping her up in his embrace, it was a mixed moment of comfort and fear as she placed her smaller cut marred hands over his larger ones with the little bits of paint that never washed away.
"I was looking for you..." Pete whispered, his hands shifting to splay over her belly.
"I just had to get out, I dunno. I just felt like I couldn't breath." Jubilee whispered, placing her hands overtop his.
"Is everything alright?" Pete asked full of new worry.
"Yeah, I just...I dunno, all of a sudden it felt like...you know when you can't remember if you left the acetylene burning on the bench and you think you're gonna burn down the whole garage right as you're ready for bed?" Jubilee asked.
"No." Pete said with a honest smile, always surprised at the two worlds they came from though sharing the love of working with their hands.
"Well, it felt like that and a whole heck of a lot worse. I just had to find somewhere I could breath." Jubilee said softly, working her fingers between his to clench his hands tightly.
"Jubilation?" Pete asked.
"Something happened didn't it?" Jubilee questioned, always able to read his mood by just the way he held her, ever her guardian.
"Do you trust Betsy?" Pete posed, putting off the worst he had to reveal just that much longer.
"Course, why?"
The bluntness of her statement helped him through the next, guile to Jubilee as alien a concept as the French cuisine they had introduced her to in Paris. Not that she didn't have her secrets, but when it came to what was on her mind it was usually told by her easy to read moods from her quiet sadness to her loud temper to her passionate time in all those hotel rooms and even a roll in the hay at the Rasputin Farmstead for the sake of tradition.
"Because she doesn't believe the woman who has brought this to us to be lying, and that makes it all the worse." Pete said, struggling to keep his tears in check though at least one surely must have fallen against her neck for the shiver that ran down her back.
"Brought..." Jubilee started, struggling for breath as her voice died, "Brought what?"
"The very same Miss Frost, whom we believe to have been one of the captors of Rachel, has through her agents in the Hellfire Group brought to us a claim to know who, who..." Pete said starting strong, gasping painfully at the hand that clenched his heart after seemingly punching him straight in the stomach.
"Who what, Pete!?" Jubilee cried, twisting in his grasp to stare up at him.
"A claim to know who had your parents murdered." Pete said so quietly it took her the pattering beats of her heart to realize what he had just sputtered.
The first painful wail was muffled as she buried her face against his chest, nearly vanishing beneath his frame as he rolled her down to lay with her and cradle her close. Below a figure fought against the rage that suddenly filled him, throwing down his cigar and stamping it out hard and fierce having declared even the Garage a 'No Smoking' area for the rare times he still indulged in that vice. Disappearing past the door to the school, the lovers were left alone to the grief at a past better left forgotten dredged up anew along with all the old wounds reopened.
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"Anything ya wanna tell me?" Logan asked, leaning against the frame to the office of Betsy Braddock.
A bottle of Scotch before her and a bottle of Advil next to it, she looked up from her choice all while massaging her temples. Throwing the pills in her desk and taking out another glass, she placed it beside the first and uncorked the bottle to pour two generous fingers in both and waved to the empty seat. Taking a seat and the offered glass, he leaned back and crossed his feet against another to stare her down across the antique desk.
"That I have a splitting headache from keeping the schools telepaths, Rachel included, oblivious to the grief radiating from both Marie and Jubilation." Betsy hissed, sipping her glass but still noticing that his sat pressed to his lips untouched.
"Ah shit." Logan swore, swallowing both fingers and pouring another.
"He went to talk to her first, oh and I really do believe my suspicions about Jubilee are true. A latent telepath, what most people would have called a 'gut instinct' once. There's a rapport building between her and Pete, strong enough to drive her to the roof out of all his dreading and fretting on how to tell her." Betsy revealed.
"Was that why her door was locked?" Logan asked turning the conversation back to Marie.
"No, just a new student needed some time to cry. I think it was a good excuse for Marie to do so as well, I barely had time to clamp down on the pain washing off her from those shared memories." Betsy admitted, gulping down the last of her scotch to take a long and deep breath with her eyes closed.
Just nodding and thinking towards having a bit of time with his own wife to be, Logan looked on Betsy full of new respect for all the secrets she had to keep. It was something he shared in common with her, all those little overheard things and just the telltale scents and aromas that hinted at kids dabbling as they would but letting them run with just enough leash before he had to lay down the law.
"It's tough, ain't it?" Logan asked, tapping his forehead with a look of understanding to her.
"Very, yet it's the reason I never question giving up my oh so glamourous lifestyle. I can take on the pain they're not ready for, shield them from the world I had to grow up in and just let them be kids. It's worth every migraine and nose bleed and deciding most of the time the better bottle to open." Betsy said with a raised glass asking to be filled.
"It's all about them at the end o' the day, ain't it?" Logan asked as he obliged her, just adding a bit more to his own before raising his in toast to her fresh one.
"Always." Betsy swore, the two clinking their glasses together in an oath between people who understand another better than they would have thought possible.
"I'll drink to that." Logan replied in a low rumble.
"On your way out, could you draw the curtains and turn off the lights. I think the worst is over for now, and my chesterfield is looking oh so very inviting." Betsy hissed, slowly making her way to lay down on the leather couch.
Knowing he had been dismissed, Logan did as he was asked and just a bit more laying a blanket over her and finding the bottle of Advil from her desk. Leaving them at the end table along with a bottle of water he found in her mini-frige, he looked on her one last time as he flicked the light switch and closed he door quietly behind him. With one door behind him, he had another to go wait by, longing to wrap his Marie up in his arms and have her just lean on him and let out whatever had been forced down.
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