Say it With Flowers

The next day Kitty woke up to find a bouquet of flowers outside her door. "Let me guess, they're from Lance?" Rogue walked up to her.

"No according to the card they're from Peter," Kitty smiled and sniffed them. "That is so totally sweet."

"You mean you got more flowers from Colossus?" Tabitha walked up to them.

"More?" Kitty asked.

"Girl you'd better come downstairs," Tabitha sighed. "Are you in for a surprise."

Kitty and Rogue followed her. "Oh my!" Kitty blinked. The entire foyer was covered with flowers. As well as the library and the living room. "All of these are for me?"

"Yes," Peter appeared with a single rose. "All for you Kitty." He gave her the rose and kissed her hand.

"Oh wow!" Kitty blinked and hugged him. "Thank you Peter!"

"Yeah thanks a lot!" Jean sniffed. "ACHOOO!" She and several other X-Men were standing there. And they weren't very happy.

"Yeah thanks for giving us all hay fever," Bobby grumbled. "Achooo!" He sneezed and accidentally froze some of the flowers with his breath. "I didn't know I could do that!"

"Colossus I think you kind of went a little overboard," Ororo looked at all the flowers.

"You think?" Amara sniffled. "ACHOOO!"

"Where did you get all these flowers?" Rogue asked. "Oh man now I'm starting to get stuffed up!"

"I picked every wild flower I could find and spent all my money on bouquets," Peter scratched his head.

"I think you must have picked some poison ivy dude!" Ray grumbled as he scratched his arms. "Something is giving me hives!"

"And giving the rest of us a serious case of hay fever," Scott muttered.

"Hey what's wrong with Lockheed?" Tabitha pointed. Kitty's dragon was stumbling around humming a strange tune.

"I saw it eating some carnations earlier," Bobby sniffed.

"Oh no!" Kitty ran over and picked up Lockheed. "Lockheed are you okay? Are you sick?"

"Hic!" Lockheed hiccuped.

"Oh we gotta get him to Mr. McCoy!" Kitty cried out.

"I've already examined him," Hank wobbled in, his fur slightly singed. "He's not sick. He's slightly inebriated. Apparently carnations are the dragon equivalent of catnip."

Kitty glared at Peter. "Oh give me a break! How was I supposed to know that?" Peter defended.

"It should wear off eventually," Hank sighed as bits of his fur fell off. "And hopefully my fur should grow back."

"What the heck is all this?" Lance materialized in the room. He was holding something in his hand that was covered in a cloth.

"It's a present from Peter to Kitty," Tabitha folded her arms and smirked.

"Yeah but it kind of backfired," Ray grumbled still scratching his arms. "Oh man I think it's spreading!"

"Hey it's the thought that counts!" Remy defended. "It seems you are outclassed Rocktumbler."

"Oh yeah?" Lance glared. "Any idiot can simply give flowers that will wilt and die! Oh wait, any idiot did!"

"So what do you have that's so much better?" Peter growled.

"Here," Lance put down the small object. "Go ahead, Kitty."

Kitty pulled off the cover to reveal a strange but beautiful plant with a multi colored flower on top. "Oh look, just what we need," Bobby said sarcastically. "Another flower."

"It's not just any flower!" Lance huffed. "It's a very rare plant. I figure you can plant it in your garden."

"Well that was really nice of you," Kitty smiled. "Thank you Lance." She kissed him on the cheek.

"Where did someone like you get a plant like that?" Peter snapped. "He probably stole it!"

"Peter!" Kitty snapped.

"I did not!" Lance told him. "I kind of found it. Trinity took a little trip to the rainforest using the Mass Device and uh…"

"Oh I get it," Peter folded his arms. "You swiped a plant from its natural environment."

"Oh and you didn't?" Lance pointed around. "Where did all of these come from?"

"Hey guys anybody wanna play ball?" Jamie walked in with a baseball bat.

"Not now Jamie," Remy warned him off. "You can't use the triplets to steal flowers for you to give Kitty!"

"Why not?" Jamie asked. "You helped Peter by swiping some of these flowers from the park."

"Jamie don't help!" Remy groaned.

"I was only…" Jamie started to say. "HEY! MY BAT!" The plant's flower had opened up and taken a huge chunk out of the bat.

"Did that plant just…eat Jamie's bat?" Amara gulped.

The plant suddenly popped out its roots out of its pot. It started to grow rapidly as it started to gnaw on the table it was on. "What kind of stupid plant is this?" Scott yelled.

"I don't know!" Lance yelped, as it grew even bigger.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Rogue snapped. "You gave Kitty a rare plant without knowing what it is?" She blanched as it started eating another table. "Or what it does?"

"I think we'd better save the recriminations for later," Hank gulped as it grew even bigger.

"I got it," Scott readied it's visor.

"No!" Ororo said, stopping him. "We can't take the chance of destroying it until we know exactly what kind of plant it is! For all we know if you blow it up it might release some dangerous spores or something."

"I know who'd know!" Lance said. "Airtight! He knows a lot of weird stuff! He even knows about rare plants and stuff!"

"Can you get him here?" Jean asked.

"Yeah no problem! Hang on," He grabbed Kitty's hand and they teleported back to the Pit.

"HE TOOK KITTY!" Peter snapped.

"Forget her Colossus we got even bigger problems!" Rogue snapped, as the plant grew bigger. "It's starting to eat another table!"

"I think we'd better concentrate our efforts on containing it," Hank remarked. "Iceman! Can you freeze the perimeter of the room so it's doesn't escape?"

"On it!" Bobby did so. "Well at least it can't get out."

"No but it's still trashing the inside of the room!" Tabitha said.

Lance materialized with Kitty and Airtight. "What's going on here?" Airtight asked.

"Sorry about this Airtight but we like really need your help," Kitty pointed.

"Oh my goodness!" Airtight blinked. "That's a Giant Amazon Rosewood Tercher! I've never seen one that big!"

"Well it was a lot smaller before it ate my baseball bat," Jamie grumbled.

"Is that thing dangerous?" Scott asked.

"Well it doesn't eat people if that's what you're asking," Airtight told them. "However it does have an unusual diet. It seems to exist on nearly an entire diet of branches and broken tree limbs."

"In other words it eats wood!" Tabitha groaned. "Way to go Rocky!"

Lance blanched as the plant tore into a nearby chair. "Maybe I should have researched this further?"

"No really?" Peter asked sarcastically.

"Great! Lance's gift is eating the furniture while Peter's flowers have given half the Institute hay fever!" Rogue sniffed. "AHCHOOO!"

"Fascinating," Airtight grinned. "Don't worry, it's mostly harmless."

"Mostly harmless?" Scott asked.

"So it destroys a room or two," Airtight waved. "Cyclops do me a favor and blast that thing will you?"

"Okay!" Scott did so. The plant broke apart in several pieces.

"I can't believe you just wantonly destroyed a rare plant like that!" Ororo gasped.

"No way," Airtight pointed. "All we did was create more. It's an amazing plant! It reproduces itself when it's broken apart!" He pointed to the now numerous plants. "Wonderful! Now I have plenty for my lab!"

"You mean instead of destroying one big plant we created a bunch of little plants?" Scott yelped.

"A lot of little hungry plants!" Airtight pointed to the plants devouring more furniture. "Aren't they cute?"

"So much for him helping the situation," Scott grumbled.

"Peter, Lance," Kitty growled. "No more flowers!"