Ice Lynx; Thank you so much for the reviews!!! We love'em t' death n' can't wait for more.
giveGodtheGlory; Wow, they really like our story don't they?
Ice Lynx; Yuppys. Can't than ya enough, only thing driving me to post more, lol. And minor note; gGtG wrote this chappie, so yay for her 'cause it's a good one, enjoy!
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Steph sighed and circled the answer on her paper, then checked the math textbook and started writing out the next problem. Beside her, on the bed she was using for a desk, Ororo's chest rose and fell in the steady rhythm of sleep.
Hank walked past, dragging one leg slightly as he carried a tray of tools back to the cupboard after washing them. "Art having fun, wee Ruhko?"
"Daba moo lala been," murmured the baby, cuddling his leg and petting his blue fur lovingly.
Hank looked down at her thoughtfully, then finished putting away the tools. "Wouldst like a Twinkie, child of the wolf?"
Ruhko glanced up at him indifferently, then cooed and snuggled her pudgy cheek against his knee.
He chuckled and offered her one of the little cakes, stuffing another into his mouth.
Steph winced and scowled absently at the paper. "How can you eat those things after... what happened?"
"Most gratefully?" asked Hank, opening another and giving it to the black- skinned baby. "And carefully." He cautiously lifted Ruhko off his foot and sat her on an examining table. "Now, see the funny light? Can you look at the funny light, oh fairest of feral infants?"
Ruhko stuffed cake into her mouth and nodded, babbling importantly, then stuck an icing covered tongue out at the scanner and giggled. "Daba, Teffie."
Steph looked up, temporarily knocked out of her depression. "Hey, you said my name."
"Uh huh." Ruhko went back to cramming cake, holding out her empty hand for another as she finished the first one.
"Steph?" Logan called, sticking his head in the door.
"BEESHA!!!" shrieked Ruhko, squeezing her Twinkies and waving her hands so that the icing shot all over Hank's front.
"Oh my stars and garters!" He jumped back as the baby went into Tasmanian Devil mode.
Logan frowned puzzledly, then grinned and walked over to pick up his youngest and sit her on his hip. "Tryin' ta sneak a physical, Blue?"
"Er...." Hank sheepishly wiped his fur.
Logan laughed. "Find anythin'?"
"Only that the metal on her skeleton is totally unknown to science." Hank dropped the paper towel into the garbage.
"It ain't adamantium?" Logan blinked.
"No, its molecular structure is similar, but the electrons that compose those molecules are far different."
Logan took one of Ruhko's fat hands and looked at it thoughtfully, then gently folded it into a fist and studied the claws as they popped out. "How toxic is it?"
"Not at all. As a matter of fact it seems to actually be beneficial, assisting her already enhanced healing factor." The furry blue doctor took off his glasses and licked Twinkie filling off the lenses.
Logan gave him a funny look, then turned to Steph. "Get suited up."
"We're going on a mission?" She jumped to her feet, folding her homework into the textbook.
"Yup. Chuck'll tell ya about it when ya get ta the War room." He winced and set Ruhko down as she started using her claws on him. "Here, Blue, she wants you."
"On the contrary." Hank sighed as the baby took her place on his foot again. "She dislikes me as sweetly as ever, friend Logan. It is my fur that she desires contact with."
The short Canadian chuckled. "Have you seen what she does ta teddy bears?"
"Yes, verily." Hank winced at the memory of the last mound of scattered stuffing and fur. "May she find other uses for me."
"How about that one?" Logan asked as Ruhko sneezed and wiped her nose on the blue doctor's leg.
Steph rolled her eyes, then stopped halfway out the door. "Hey, Hank, won't it be hot with all that fur inside your uniform?"
"Oh dear," was the last thing she heard as she bounded toward the uniform lockers.
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Professor Xavier read the roll, leaning back in his motorized wheelchair and meeting the eyes of each person as he called their name.
"Shadowcat?"
"Here," said the young brunette nervously.
"Siryn?"
"'Ere," said Theresa. Logan could smell his whisky on her breath.
"Colossus?"
"Here."
"Steph?"
"I have a code name."
"I'm sorry, it sounds too similar to Theresa's. You'll have to think of another."
"Bite me, baldy," she muttered sullenly.
Logan half-raised his hand to swat her, but then caught the Professor's eye and put it down again. Chuck was right, hitting wouldn't do Steph any good, especially after what she'd been through the week before.
"Rogue?"
"Heah."
"Iceman?"
"Huh?"
Logan pinched the bridge of his nose and took away the Gameboy. "Pay attention, bub."
"Sorry." He turned red as the girls giggled and Peter smirked.
"Jubilee?"
"Like, here." pop
"Please refrain from snapping your gum while on duty."
"Sorry." crack
Logan heard Charles sigh at the same time as he did. -Chuck, what are we doin', draggin' a bunch a kids out there?-
-Representing our race.- The Professor smiled at him wanly and read the next name.
"Beast?"
"Here, oh most illustrious of leaders!" Hank beamed, fangs gleaming. The effect was faintly hilarious.
"Wolverine?"
"Here," he growled, pinching his nose again.
Charles nodded and closed the book. "Now then...."
"BEESHA!"
Everyone winced, especially Hank.
"Ruhko?" said Charles cautiously.
"Nyo!"
Charles looked at Logan evenly. "Now then, since we are all here.... Jubilee, please refrain from breathing on the table and pay attention."
"Am payin' attention." She sat up and blew a gum bubble.
Charles' eyes pinched slightly at the corners. "Now, as you have heard, we have a very important mission. The President has asked the Xmen to serve as his honor guard in the parade tomorrow when he visits New York City."
"But they're all asleep, or gone," said Kitty worriedly.
Charles sat with his mouth open for a moment. "Shadowcat, look around you. What do you see?"
She did, forehead creased. "Classmates, and Dr. McCoy, and Wolvie?"
"You see the X-men, Kathryn," he said gently.
"Oh." She flushed in embarrassment. "Yeah. I guess we're all that's left, huh?"
Steph shot her a murderous look and Logan growled at his middle child warningly.
She transferred the look to him and made a hand sign under the edge of the table.
"Can we git this show on the road, Chuck?" he growled.
"Yes." Charles sighed.
"Nyo!!!"
Hank cringed, turning so pale that it showed through his fur, then pulled a package of Twinkies out of his chest pocket and offered it to Ruhko.
"As I was saying," said Charles wearily. "The team will go to New York tonight to discreetly oversee security. I will be in contact with the team leaders via telepathy. Iceman, Colossus, Jubilee, and Shadowcat will be in Hank's team. Rogue, Steph, and Siryn will be in Wolverine's team."
"Baby?" came a suddenly meek voice from under the table.
Charles exchanged glances with Logan. "Ruhko will be in charge of making sure I'm safe."
"'Tay." She went back to cooing at Hank's fur. Steph could just guess how glad he was that his uniform had short legs.
"Very good, collect your overnight things and report to the Blackbird in ten minutes." Charles nodded as everyone got up, then looked under the table with a smile. "Does that taste good, Ruhko? Don't damage it too badly, or the table will fall on you."
Steph stooped for a quick glimpse of her baby sister chewing on the steel table leg as she hurried out the door.
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"That's my freakin' name, and you'd better get yerself another one!" she yelled at Theresa as she stuffed her pajamas into her backpack.
"I've been Syrin since m' power manifested!" the normally quiet Irish girl yelled back, green eyes flashing.
"I don't care! It's mine! And I'll...." Steph paused and threw her hands over her ears as Theresa gave a sonic squeal.
"Knock it off!!!" came the bellow from Logan's room.
"It's mine." Steph gave her a demented, evil' grin.
"What are you doin', Steph?" came Rogue's amused voice from the door.
"Crud." Steph blushed, then grabbed the doll that Theresa slept with and held it over her head. "Maybe I should put this up on the light fixture."
Theresa's eyes filled with tears. "Me Da gave me that before he went away."
Steph felt mean, but covered it by chucking the doll at the shorter girl and swaggering out into the hall, where Logan stood with his arms crossed.
He raised one eyebrow. "Would ya like it if someone did that t' you?"
"No," she said sullenly.
"Then knock it off." He turned and walked toward the elevator.
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There was silence in the Blackbird as Hank flew with quiet efficiency, dark eyes watchful as he looked for any sings of trouble. Logan dozed in the seat beside him, occasionally twitching and growling to himself. Bobby played on the Gameboy while Rogue read a horse magazine.
In the back Kitty leaned against Peter, dead to the world, while he held her and stared into space, her little purple dragon draped over his knee. Jubilee read a teen magazine and popped her gum. Across from her, Theresa hugged her overnight bag and blinked, knees pulled up under her chin. Steph scowled at a pocket Tetris game that Logan had given her at the start of the trip, going to unbelievable levels and completely unaware of the passage of time.
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Logan growled and blinked awake as the jet landed on the roof of the hotel, then stretched hugely. "Did everybody die back there?" He looked around the back of his seat at the contentedly occupied young people and raised an eyebrow. "Hank, I think we picked up a bunch 'a evil clones somewhere, this can't be our kids."
Steph cursed and threw the Tetris across the cabin.
"Never mind. That's them." He stretched again and stood up, tripping the trigger to lower the ramp.
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He was impressed at how well the security check went, the only mishap being when some female presidential aid came face to face with Hank and screamed bloody murder. Hank nearly jumped out of his skin, then jumped all over himself trying to calm the woman down. In the end it was Steph's slightly hysterical laughter that snapped her out of her fright and she huffed off like an offended hen.
He chuckled at the memory and looked into his bag of freeze-dried steak and chips.
"Remembering my unfortunate mishap?" Hank chewed a Twinkie and offered Theresa a bag of bread pudding.
"Yup." He smirked at the doctor, then glanced at the bunk where Steph was engaged in Tetris again. "Funny, none a our girls think yer that ugly."
"Doc ain't ugly!" Rogue stopped wolfing chicken parmesan and scowled. "He's th' cutest animated teddy bear Ah evah saw."
"Cookie monster," said Jubilee cheerfully.
"Sully," corrected Steph absently.
"Does that make you Mike, shugah?" Rogue asked Bobby.
"Mike's a putz," said Bobby around a mouthful of freeze dried ice cream.
"Is not." Steph bobbled her key ring Mike with the rolling eye over the edge of her bunk.
"Is too," he said, swallowing. "What is it with girls and dolls?"
"He's not a doll, you #%$." She gave an absent chortle as she rose to another level.
"Is too," said Bobby, then winced as Kitty kicked him under the table.
"So's Batman," said Steph, intent on her game again, Mike sitting on his head on her chest.
Bobby flushed. "How'd you know about him? I mean, what are you talking about?"
"The secret's out, tovarisch," chuckled Peter.
"He's not a doll!" Bobby iced up slightly. "He's an action figure."
"With real clothes?" Rogue raised one eyebrow.
"Knock it off," growled Logan. "If yer that bored ya can go run laps around the Bird."
The kids glanced at him, then returned to their food and game meekly.
He chuckled and finished the last bite of his meal, crumpling the bag and tossing it at the recycler unit on the wall. "Anybody for poker?"
He was suddenly surrounded by eight different versions of The Look. "What? What's wrong with poker?"
"You cheat," said Steph eloquently.
"Do not!" he growled.
"You do too, you showed me how the other day."
"Jus' because I know how doesn't mean that I do it." He scowled.
"You do it."
He turned to Rogue for support, but she was laughing at him.
"Fine! Whatever! I'm goin' out n make sure everthin's all right out there. The rest a ya stay here."
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Logan knew where each member of his and Hank's teams were without looking. Kitty still smelled scared, but being near Pete seemed to help.
-Wish this was over already. All this cheerin's gonna leave me deaf.-
-All's well otherwise?-
-Yeah, Chuck, quit lookin' over my shoulder.-
One of the official bodyguards gave him a funny look as he snarled to himself, but then just faced forward and kept marching.
Probably afraid of the big bad mutie, he thought sourly. He couldn't tell with all the scents blowing around right now.
There was a shout from behind him from Hank and he spun to see Steph arrowing into the crowds that thronged some portable bleachers next to the street.
A gunshot sounded and his heart leaped into his throat as he saw his middle daughter's body jerk before she smashed her fist into the face of the guy she'd jumped.
Then Hank was there, kicking the guy over and sitting on him while he lowered Steph gently to the ground.
"How is she?" Logan scanned the area and saw the President getting hustled off to safety, the rest of the X-Men sticking to him like glue.
"The shot missed her vital organs." Hank got up so that the police could take away the gunman, who was cursing eloquently in French and waved away the blue-coated medics who came to hover anxiously, eyes on the prone girl. "But she is losing blood rapidly. We must get her back to the Blackbird."
Steph groaned and moved her head, eyes searching for Logan.
"Hold still," he told her. "Hank's taken ya ta the Bird. The rest a us'll be back soon."
She nodded and closed her eyes, snuggling Hank's chest as he lifted her gently and bounded away.
Logan watched them go, then turned, his eyes passing over the shocked face of Carl Renher in the crowd.