(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 4
For a while, he thought it might actually work. Logan really wasn't much of a teacher, but the students knew better than to mess with him, and there wasn't much he couldn't handle in the PE areas of things. Plus, he found himself useful when it came to fighting techniques for potential future X-Men. After a couple of months, he almost liked being on staff at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
Of course, it wasn't all as straightforward as he might've hoped. Marie was still there, and although she kept her promise to back off, it was plain as day she was just biding her time. Trouble came up on the horizon, as Scott went through the healing process of his grief and Marie's graduation day drew ever closer. As they were reaching towards that day she warned him exactly what she was waiting for, perhaps the biggest problem was that Logan was yearning for it too, even though he knew it made him an idiot.
For a while there, he almost hoped Marie would change her mind about that Iceman kid. Things could've been a whole lot easier that way. Yes, Logan would've had to overcome the daily urge to tear the little sucker limb from limb, every time he saw him in close proximity to her, but maybe that would've been better than the waiting and wondering and fearing what came next.
As it turned out, Bobby got bored of trying and failing with the girl the other students still called Rogue. He found that he could be loved and adored himself if he looked to little Kitty Pryde.
Logan would have said they were adorable together, if he used words like that, which he didn't. It sure was hard not to think they made a good pairing though. He would see them laughing together in the halls, arms around each other. In battle training, he'd help her up when she fell and her eyes just lit up from knowing that he cared. They worked well together, connected in some way that just made sense.
Logan tried not to think about it too much. Seeing other couples getting along made him look to the relationships in his own life, made him think about Marie in ways he was forever trying hard not to. The past couple of weeks, Logan had realised his teaching days were very much numbered, and even if they weren't, Marie was eighteen now, graduated from her education, sticking around to be part of the team rather than part of the student body.
Her coming to seek him out was inevitable, had been for days now, which was why Logan was already talking about making his escape. A vacation, maybe even leaving for good, he wasn't sure, but he was getting that old familiar urge to run. It was the whole X-Men thing that stopped him, the professor and his worries that something wasn't right, that something was coming, something bad just waiting to slap them all down.
Whether it was a general thing or something he was picking up with his powers, Logan didn't know, but it made him antsy. Last thing he wanted to do was leave these people in the lurch when they needed a helping hand. Not after all they'd done for him.
It was wondering on what to do next, about the school and Marie and everything, that had him pacing the grounds like a caged animal. He was so distracted, he almost didn't realise he had picked up a tail. It was only her distinctive scent and gait that made him stop, close his eyes and brace for impact.
"Logan?"
"What do you want, kid?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder as Marie hurried to catch up to him.
"You know, you really have to stop calling me that now."
He wanted to tell her he didn't know what she was talking about, but looking at her then, stood tall and beautiful as ever before him, every inch a highly attractive young woman, he knew he couldn't. She wasn't a kid. Sometimes, he wondered if she ever really had been, at least as long as he had known her. The powers she had, all that she had been through, she had to grow up fast. In spite of everything, she had also grown up good.
"What do you want, Marie?" he tried instead, meeting her gaze, trying to be the kind of strong this particular situation required, knowing he would doubtless fail.
"We need to talk about some things," she told him, looking just this side of nervous now she had his full attention. "Look, Logan, I know things have been weird between us, and I'm not stupid, I do understand why. With you being a teacher here and me being a student and all... Even without that, I'm not blind. I know you're older than me, but what difference does that really make anyhow?"
"A lot of difference," he told her sharply, running a hand back through his hair. "Marie, I know you think it's all so simple. You and me, riding off into the sunset or something, but come on. You know better. You know more than most girls your age, life is not some dumb fairy-tale."
"Isn't it?" she checked, smiling some more. "Come on, Logan. The so-called beast man that saved the runaway girl from the bad guys?" she recounted their own tale with a certain fable-like magic thrown in. "You can't tell me that doesn't sound like it came right out of a story book, and those people always lived happily ever after, right?"
He wanted to tell her no, tell her she was crazy to even joke like that. Tell her he just wasn't interested anyway, but he swore he would never lie, not to her. When she stepped in closer, all but overwhelming his senses, he tried not to flinch, even as her gloved hand came up to cup his cheek.
"I'm not a kid, Logan, and I'm not stupid. I also remember exactly what you said to me in your room a few months back. We care about each other. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one feelin' attracted here either," she said with a dangerous kind of smile, or so Logan thought. "I know it wouldn't be easy, but can't we at least try?"
"Try what?" he asked, finally pulling away from her, determined that he had to for both their sakes, because he meant what he said about fairy tales and this conversation needed a serious dose of reality before he let himself get really stupid. "You wanna be boyfriend and girlfriend? I'm a little old for that. If you're looking for happily ever after, sweetheart, you're in the wrong place with the wrong guy. Besides, the way things are with you, with me..." he stopped, removed her hand from his face and shook his head. "What kind of relationship do you think this would be?"
The hurt in her eyes felt like knives through his heart, but what he said was true. Even if he wanted to make something work with her, he couldn't. The savage beast that lived in him, the power in her skin that took everything, even life itself, from any person she openly touched. It couldn't work and he wouldn't put either of them through the pain of trying, especially her. He cared too much about her for that.
"Logan..." she began, only for someone else's yelling to cut into the suddenly quiet moment occurring between them.
Logan reacted immediately, crossed to the nearby glass doors and wrenched them open in time to see a crowd of kids gathering around the TV. On the screen, a man explained that he had made a great discovery, a medication or something.
"Oh my God!"
Marie was once again at his side, gasping with surprise at what she was hearing. Logan couldn't exactly blame her. What this guy on TV was saying was pretty shocking. Seemed he may just have found a way to reverse the kinds of mutations that made all of them so different. Apparently, if they wanted to, they could all be 'cured'.
She should take time to think about it more. If she asked anybody else's opinion on the matter, Marie was well aware that was the answer she would get. The other kids at the school, the teachers like Storm and the professor, a lot of them were proud of their mutations, saw them as gifts. It was a whole other ballgame for someone like her. There was a reason why she had picked the name Rogue, after all.
"Are you really gonna do this?"
The voice at the door was not entirely unexpected, but Marie still startled a little when she heard it, her hand stilling with the next piece of clothing halfway into her duffel. Shoving it further inside the bag, she turned to face him with a sigh.
"Come on, Bobby. What choice do I have?" she asked him shaking her head. "Not being able to be close, to touch," she said, her gloved hands clasping each other. "It didn't do us any good, did it?"
One side of his lips quirked up as he leaned in the doorway.
"I really don't think that was the main problem with you and me, was it?"
He was practically smirking, as if he thought he were being smart. Probably didn't take much intelligence to see what was right in front of your face, Marie supposed. She really never hid where her heart truly belonged, especially from the first real friend she made at the school.
"He's makin' it an excuse, you know?" she said of Logan, knowing she certainly didn't have to name names, not with Bobby. "Take that away and maybe, just maybe I can convince him to take a chance," she said, turning back to her packing.
Checking she had everything she needed, Marie pulled the bag shut and went to retrieve her coat from the closet. She hadn't realised Bobby had come further into the room until he suddenly spoke again.
"I may not entirely understand what you see in him," he said, obviously still talking about Logan, "but the way he looks at you, the way he is always there for you... He cares, Rogue, I know he does," he said definitely, as she looked back at him. "Are you sure he would want you to do this, just for him?"
At that, she shook her head. "Probably not," she admitted, pulling on her coat, ready to leave.
"Then why do it?" asked Bobby, his hand on her bag to stop her picking it up and leaving until after he got an answer.
Marie glanced up and met his gaze, unwavering and never more certain of anything.
"For me," she said definitely. "Oh, he's a part of it, I won't deny, but most of all, I need this for me, Bobby," she told him what she had expected him to already realise. "They call the powers we have gifts, but mine is different. You know it is. If I can be cured, even if it's just temporary, even if it's..." she trailed off, desperate not to think of the consequences she might have to face later if anything went wrong. "I have to try," she said eventually, knowing it to be true, above all else.
She half-expected him to try to convince her some more, to argue, maybe even to tell on her to someone else he thought might stand a better chance. In the end, she ought to have known he was a better friend than that. He always had been.
"Then good luck," he said suddenly, picking up her bag for her and placing it in her hands. "I mean that," he insisted, finding her a smile.
She smiled back because she couldn't do anything else.
"I know you do, and thank you, Bobby," she said, leaning in to plant the lightest of kisses on his cheek, retracting fast before she could do any real damage. "I'll see you soon," she told him then, heading for the door before he could say another word.
She didn't want him changing his mind or trying to change hers. It wouldn't do him any good to try, but she would rather not fight, with him or with anyone.
"You know, I've only ever seen you this worked up over one person."
Someone, anyone speaking to him then caught Logan off-guard. He was usually so aware when he had company, but when he got too far inside his own head, he sometimes let his guard down. He didn't worry about it too much in the relative safety of the school grounds. It was how Storm had got a little too good at creeping up on him when the mood took her.
"What did you say?" he asked, a little growl in his tone that was only half-deliberate.
Storm smiled, unaffected by any aggression he might show. She knew better than to be afraid of The Wolverine. She knew him too well already.
"I see why you would struggle with your feelings for her, now more than ever," she said, obviously meaning Marie and they both knew it - Logan couldn't even try to pretend otherwise. "You know she's not a kid, not like some of the others," Storm continued. "She can't be, not given her gift."
"You really think that power she has is a gift?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.
Storm perched on the edge of the nearby desk and nodded her head.
"I think so, though I guess I can see why Rogue might feel differently. It has to be tough on her, and now, with the chance to rid herself of her mutation... She's probably feeling very mixed up right now. Probably needs someone she can trust to talk to."
Clearly, she meant him, but Logan really wasn't sure he was the right guy for the job. Of course, there was a time when he would've disputed the fact he was the right guy to play hero to a runaway mutant girl, or teach in a school, or fight the good fight alongside the X-Men. Time and again, he seemed to be proven wrong lately, while everybody else got to be right.
"You're too smart for your own good, you know that, right?" he said to Storm, moving his ass towards the door even as she smirked at him.
"I'll remind you that you said that sometime."
"You do that," he told her with a smile of his own as he hurried on out of the door.
His plan had been to go right along to Marie's room, sure that was where she would be, mulling over her choices. He barely made it to the base of the stairs, before he realised her scent had recently been there and then drifted off down the other corridor. Frowning, he headed that way instead, glad that he moved swiftly when he spotted the familiar figure in a familiar coat right by the door, her hand already on the knob, ready to walk out.
"You running again?"
The words came instantly to mind, the same she had said to him a while back when he had been the one in that position, ready to bolt, unsure if he would return. It bothered him to think she might be considering the same, to leave and never come back, without even saying so much as goodbye.
"Wasn't sure how much you'd care about my leavin'," she said, turning cold eyes on him.
Logan winced at the look and the words both. He glanced away, tried to think how best to say what he wanted to, knowing already he would never find the exact right words. Guys like him never did.
"Marie, just... just be sure before you do this," he urged her. "I'm guessing you're on your way to that lab we saw on TV?"
"It's what I need to do, Logan," she told him without pause. "I can't live this way. I thought that maybe I could, figured it was that or... well, just figured I had to find a way. Now, I don't. I have a chance here at a real, full life," she explained, taking a couple of steps closer. "I want those things that right now I can never have, Logan," she told him, staring up into his eyes. "A proper hug, a handshake. A real kiss."
Logan swallowed hard. "Don't do this for me."
She smiled at that. "I'm doing it for me," she insisted, "because it's what I want, and I always go for what I want."
"Like I don't know that already," he told her, rolling his eyes, smiling because it was impossible not to with such a woman in front of him. "You know, more than anything else, I just want you to be happy, right?"
"I know," she agreed, nodding he head, "and this will make me happy, or at least get me halfway there."
Her meaning was clear enough and Logan wished he knew what the right answer was, as she turned to walk away from him again. He didn't need to ask if she would be back, he already knew what her plan entailed. It had been clear from almost the very beginning that she had plans for them to be together someday, somehow. There was no denying that this so-called cure could make things easier. Still complicated as all hell, but maybe not entirely impossible. Logan supposed all they could really do was wait and see.
Turning back at the door, Marie's expression was serious as she looked at him then.
"You will still be here when I get back, right?"
Logan never made promises he couldn't keep, especially not with her. Though he knew he had to be crazy, he slowly nodded his head.
"Sure, I'll be here," he told her.
The smile that lit up her face was worth its weight in gold, and then, she was gone, the door closing with a thud in her wake. Logan felt something constrict in his chest, some foreboding feeling that made him want to run after her and away from everything all at the same time. He did neither, but somehow, he knew none of this could be quite as simple as Marie was making it seem.
To Be Continued...