Ororo peers around the corner. She's standing on tiptoe. "The coast's
clear," she hisses to Jean. "Where is this ice cream, exactly?"
"Oh, grow up, 'Ro-ro," Jean sighs. "I'll tell you where it is. You know that window box, right? Well, if you unscrew that then you can lift the lid up, and inside there he's got this little freezer and it's FULL of Ben and Jerry's."
Ororo looks worried. "I don't have a screwdriver."
Jean grins, and reaches down her top. "No, but I have. Ta-da! I confiscated it off Wanda, she was using it to try and kill a blackbird in the garden."
"Fantastic. Let's go-go-go!" Ororo cries happily.
"What are you up to?" Logan asks, having crept up behind them and watched with some interest when Jean was feeling around down her top.
Ororo and Jean both jump. "Nothing."
"So why are you both standing outside Kurt's room holding a screwdriver, looking suspicious?"
"Revenge on Kurt."
"Oh, great. Can I join in?"
Ororo looks pained. "Oh, no, you see, ice cream doesn't go as far between three people."
"Ororo, I'm on a diet," Jean reminds her. "I don't want any."
"Perfect! Okay, you can have... a little bit, Logan."
"That's what I love about you, Ororo. Your generosity. But I'm more interested in gettin' at the Elf, to be honest."
"Good. The ice cream's mine then."
"Only if I get to take..." Logan looks thoughtful. "Does he have a diary? I'll sniff it out and hold it for ransom."
Jean pushes the door open gently. "Right, get in! Quick!"
"Can I have the screwdriver?" Ororo begs. "Please, please, please, please, please?"
"No! I want to do it!" Jean folds her arms.
"For god's sake women, I'll do it!" Logan growls, and snatches the screwdriver off Jean before she has time to react.
"Hey!" Ororo yells, and shocks Logan with a small lightning bolt.
"Mine!" Jean howls, leaping at him.
"What are you doing?" A voice enquires. "Ah want to help raid Kurt's room!"
"No, Rogue! We're not raiding Kurt's room! Not at all. Go away."
"Awww, no one likes me," Rogue sniffs. "Just because Ah'm new, none of you like me, you just want me to go away..."
"Damn right," Logan mutters.
"No Rogue, that's not true. It's just Ororo is very possessive about ice cream."
"Damn right," agrees Ororo.
"But Rogue, look. This is kind of a secret thing and the less people who know about it, the better. Yeah?"
"No. Okay, Ah'm outta here. Ah've got work to do, anyway."
There's a sudden bamf and the three of them try their best to look innocent. Logan shoves the screwdriver at Ororo, who hides it behind her back.
"Guten Tag, fellow X-Men!" Kurt grins cheerfully. "I just came to get this." He holds up a book. "Well, goodbye!" Bamf.
All three breathe out at the same time.
"That was close," Ororo comments. "Yes, I have the screwdriver! Screw you, Wolvie!"
"Not funny, Ororo. Give it back."
"No!"
"Hey, guys?" Jean calls. "Erm, he left it unscrewed."
"ICE CREAM!" Ororo cries happily.
"And where does that kid keep his diary?" Everyone's younger than Logan, so anyone could be considered a kid to him.
"Under the bed," Jean offers.
"Where do you learn these things?" Ororo asks interestedly.
"I'm psychic, duh."
"Oh, right. You sure you don't want some of this? Jeez, doesn't this guy have spoons?" Ororo is searching through the box with one hand and eating ice cream with the fingers on the other.
"If you can find a spoon," Logan offers.
"I have one!" Jean says proudly.
"Let me guess. You keep it down your top," Logan says, with a hint of sarcasm.
"Yeah, duh! Where else could I keep it?"
Logan just sighs.
"What else are you hiding in there?" Ororo asks. "And give me the spoon, then."
"Don't be so nosy." She hands the spoon over. "Hang on, I'm going to keep watch by the door."
"Aren't you psychic? Doesn't that mean there's no need to stand and keep watch? And can't Kurt teleport?"
"Shut up, Ororo! You're ruining everything!"
She ignores her and settles down with her ice cream.
* * * * *
"The Captain's feeling much better," Katherine reports. "Nothing worse than a mild concussion. Hopefully he'll forget that he wants to sue you, Jean."
"Oh, why would he want to sue me? So I knocked him out on the driveway and gave him concussion. He shouldn't be such a baby! He should have fought back!"
Maggie coughs. "Yes, anyway, children."
"He must be alright though, he and Logan have been in Logan's room for hours."
The rest of the X-Men, plus Wanda and Pietro, are gathered in the sitting room. Kurt is frantically scribbling in a notebook, and Katherine is trying to watch. Rogue is sat on the floor by Kurt's feet. Wanda and Pietro are playing Connect Four in the middle of the room, not arguing, at least for the moment. Charlie and Maggie are curled up together on the sofa. Jean and Ororo are sitting on beanbags watching the twins, Ororo eating ice cream. Kurt doesn't seem to have noticed.
"Cheat!" Pietro howls, breaking the near-silence.
"I did NOT cheat, Pietro Maximoff, and you know it! You just want to pretend I cheated so that you can cheat and then you'll win!"
"You had two goes in a row, Wanda! That's cheating!"
"I did not! And besides, I'm older than you."
"Are not! I'm older than her, aren't I Dad?"
"Daddy's boy."
"I am NOT, am I Dad? And I'm the oldest, aren't I? Tell her, Dad!"
"Children, children, children. I don't remember which one of you is older. In fact, I don't even remember your birthday."
"September 15th," Pietro says, just as Wanda says, "September 16th."
"I thought it was the fourteenth. But never mind. Your mother will know. Ring her tomorrow and ask her."
"But Daaaad!" Pietro cries. "That doesn't solve it! She still cheated, didn't she?"
"I'm not getting involved. Why don't you play something different for a bit?"
"Like what?" Pietro sticks out his bottom lip.
"I don't know. Perhaps Charlie has a pack of playing cards or something you could mess around with."
"Great. Charlie, do you have a pack of playing cards we could borrow, please?" Pietro asks in his most polite voice.
"I don't want to play cards with you, cheater," Wanda disagrees.
"Well, tough Wanda, I want to play and I'm older than you!"
"No you're NOT!"
"Yes I AM!"
"Not!"
"Am so!"
"Are not!"
"Am SO!"
"Shut UP!" Ororo wails. "I'm trying to eat ice cream here!"
"Ice cream?" Kurt looks up. "Can I have some?"
"Yeah, sure, why not? Just a little bit though."
He puts his notebook down (Katherine snatches it up, quick), and goes and sits next to Ororo, who spoon-feeds him ice cream.
Minutes pass, and then Kurt speaks. "Wait here, I have to check something." He bamfs off.
Ororo creeps out the patio doors into the garden.
"MY ICE CREAM!" Kurt howls from upstairs.
"Ororo's in trouble, Ororo's in trouble," Jean sings.
* * * * *
Ororo's hiding in the shed at the bottom of the garden. It's where she always goes when she needs to hide from someone--which is more often that you'd expect. It's kind of cold, but she's prepared, just in case she has to stay out all night. And it is starting to get dark, which is why she brought her CD player, a blanket, a torch, three batteries, four candles, a box of matches, a book, and some rope. She doesn't know what the rope could be useful for--yet. But you never know. It's what they always have in films.
And Jean is sat on the sofa, smiling to herself. She knows where Ororo is, without even using her telepathy to find her. Kurt is angrily bamfing around the mansion, mumbling, "I'll kill her!" every few seconds, and throwing things around.
Maggie and Charlie are sat in the middle of it, calmly playing chess. One of the cushions off the sofa sails past Maggie's head, but he's so deep in thought he doesn't notice.
Katherine sighs and tucks her feet under her, sat in an armchair reading Kurt's autobiography. She knows Kurt won't rest until he's found Ororo and punished her in some evil, vile, violent way.
Rogue is currently babysitting for Pietro and Wanda. "You see, Pietro, Ah had this operation, and what they did was--" She stops. "No. Your father wouldn't want you to know all this, would he?"
"No no carry on," he says hurriedly, speaking even faster than usual.
"Alright, so what the surgeon had to do was turn me into a woman." She carried on, explaining in detail, Pietro looking amazed and shocked at each thing she'd had done.
Wanda, however, was sat with her back to Rogue and Pietro and was playing with something Mystique had bought her a week or so earlier to keep her quiet: A Beginners Guide To Voodoo.
"And the Dad voodoo doll needs a few more pins," she's muttering. "And the Jean one probably just wants a quick thump."
"Ow!" Jean yelps. "I just got this horrible pain in my stomach, like someone hit me with a cannonball or something."
Wanda giggles for the first time since she arrived at the mansion. "This is the best present I ever had, apart from that Swiss army knife Dad gave me."
"What a vicious little brat," Rogue mumbles to herself, hoping Wanda won't hear. "God knows what she'll be like when her powers develop."
"I heard that, heshe!" she cries angrily. "Now you're going to get it!" She grabs the Rogue doll, throws it to the ground and stamps on it.
"It's erm, not working," Rogue offers. "AAAARGGHHHH, okay, it's working now!"
"WANDA!" Maggie yells, getting up off the floor and upsetting half the chessboard. "What have I told you about that voodoo set?"
"Use it in moderation?" she asks, as he strides over to her.
"Save it for enemies of the family and special occasions! Honestly Wanda, what are we going to do with you? Lock you up?"
"CHAAARLIE! Dad's threatening me again!" Wanda yells.
Kurt gives a howl. "Wo ist sie?"
"Do you give up?" Jean asks, her eyes glinting maliciously. "Do you want to know where she is?"
"Ja, ja, JA! Tell me!" Kurt stamps his foot in frustration.
"No, I'm sorry, Kurt, but I love Ororo, and if I was to turn her in to you, with you full of murderous rage as you are, that just wouldn't be a nice thing to do."
"Jean Grey, you are the most annoying, irritating, and--damn, that's as far as my English vocabulary goes."
"Loyal?" Katherine suggests.
"Loy--no! Oh, you're so MEAN!!! All of you! She stole my ice cream! And I'm going to find her! She's hiding in the shed where she always is, isn't she?"
Jean nods.
"Well, I'm going to go and make her wish she'd never stolen that ice cream!" He stamps up to the glass patio doors and walks into them. "Okay, who cleaned those windows?"
"I did! Duh, I've been spring-cleaning, 'Crawler," Maggie says. "Perhaps if you just open the door now?"
"Yes, okay. Erm, where's the key, Maggie?"
"One word. Bamf, Kurt, bamf."
"That's three words!" Bamf.
"Oh, grow up, 'Ro-ro," Jean sighs. "I'll tell you where it is. You know that window box, right? Well, if you unscrew that then you can lift the lid up, and inside there he's got this little freezer and it's FULL of Ben and Jerry's."
Ororo looks worried. "I don't have a screwdriver."
Jean grins, and reaches down her top. "No, but I have. Ta-da! I confiscated it off Wanda, she was using it to try and kill a blackbird in the garden."
"Fantastic. Let's go-go-go!" Ororo cries happily.
"What are you up to?" Logan asks, having crept up behind them and watched with some interest when Jean was feeling around down her top.
Ororo and Jean both jump. "Nothing."
"So why are you both standing outside Kurt's room holding a screwdriver, looking suspicious?"
"Revenge on Kurt."
"Oh, great. Can I join in?"
Ororo looks pained. "Oh, no, you see, ice cream doesn't go as far between three people."
"Ororo, I'm on a diet," Jean reminds her. "I don't want any."
"Perfect! Okay, you can have... a little bit, Logan."
"That's what I love about you, Ororo. Your generosity. But I'm more interested in gettin' at the Elf, to be honest."
"Good. The ice cream's mine then."
"Only if I get to take..." Logan looks thoughtful. "Does he have a diary? I'll sniff it out and hold it for ransom."
Jean pushes the door open gently. "Right, get in! Quick!"
"Can I have the screwdriver?" Ororo begs. "Please, please, please, please, please?"
"No! I want to do it!" Jean folds her arms.
"For god's sake women, I'll do it!" Logan growls, and snatches the screwdriver off Jean before she has time to react.
"Hey!" Ororo yells, and shocks Logan with a small lightning bolt.
"Mine!" Jean howls, leaping at him.
"What are you doing?" A voice enquires. "Ah want to help raid Kurt's room!"
"No, Rogue! We're not raiding Kurt's room! Not at all. Go away."
"Awww, no one likes me," Rogue sniffs. "Just because Ah'm new, none of you like me, you just want me to go away..."
"Damn right," Logan mutters.
"No Rogue, that's not true. It's just Ororo is very possessive about ice cream."
"Damn right," agrees Ororo.
"But Rogue, look. This is kind of a secret thing and the less people who know about it, the better. Yeah?"
"No. Okay, Ah'm outta here. Ah've got work to do, anyway."
There's a sudden bamf and the three of them try their best to look innocent. Logan shoves the screwdriver at Ororo, who hides it behind her back.
"Guten Tag, fellow X-Men!" Kurt grins cheerfully. "I just came to get this." He holds up a book. "Well, goodbye!" Bamf.
All three breathe out at the same time.
"That was close," Ororo comments. "Yes, I have the screwdriver! Screw you, Wolvie!"
"Not funny, Ororo. Give it back."
"No!"
"Hey, guys?" Jean calls. "Erm, he left it unscrewed."
"ICE CREAM!" Ororo cries happily.
"And where does that kid keep his diary?" Everyone's younger than Logan, so anyone could be considered a kid to him.
"Under the bed," Jean offers.
"Where do you learn these things?" Ororo asks interestedly.
"I'm psychic, duh."
"Oh, right. You sure you don't want some of this? Jeez, doesn't this guy have spoons?" Ororo is searching through the box with one hand and eating ice cream with the fingers on the other.
"If you can find a spoon," Logan offers.
"I have one!" Jean says proudly.
"Let me guess. You keep it down your top," Logan says, with a hint of sarcasm.
"Yeah, duh! Where else could I keep it?"
Logan just sighs.
"What else are you hiding in there?" Ororo asks. "And give me the spoon, then."
"Don't be so nosy." She hands the spoon over. "Hang on, I'm going to keep watch by the door."
"Aren't you psychic? Doesn't that mean there's no need to stand and keep watch? And can't Kurt teleport?"
"Shut up, Ororo! You're ruining everything!"
She ignores her and settles down with her ice cream.
* * * * *
"The Captain's feeling much better," Katherine reports. "Nothing worse than a mild concussion. Hopefully he'll forget that he wants to sue you, Jean."
"Oh, why would he want to sue me? So I knocked him out on the driveway and gave him concussion. He shouldn't be such a baby! He should have fought back!"
Maggie coughs. "Yes, anyway, children."
"He must be alright though, he and Logan have been in Logan's room for hours."
The rest of the X-Men, plus Wanda and Pietro, are gathered in the sitting room. Kurt is frantically scribbling in a notebook, and Katherine is trying to watch. Rogue is sat on the floor by Kurt's feet. Wanda and Pietro are playing Connect Four in the middle of the room, not arguing, at least for the moment. Charlie and Maggie are curled up together on the sofa. Jean and Ororo are sitting on beanbags watching the twins, Ororo eating ice cream. Kurt doesn't seem to have noticed.
"Cheat!" Pietro howls, breaking the near-silence.
"I did NOT cheat, Pietro Maximoff, and you know it! You just want to pretend I cheated so that you can cheat and then you'll win!"
"You had two goes in a row, Wanda! That's cheating!"
"I did not! And besides, I'm older than you."
"Are not! I'm older than her, aren't I Dad?"
"Daddy's boy."
"I am NOT, am I Dad? And I'm the oldest, aren't I? Tell her, Dad!"
"Children, children, children. I don't remember which one of you is older. In fact, I don't even remember your birthday."
"September 15th," Pietro says, just as Wanda says, "September 16th."
"I thought it was the fourteenth. But never mind. Your mother will know. Ring her tomorrow and ask her."
"But Daaaad!" Pietro cries. "That doesn't solve it! She still cheated, didn't she?"
"I'm not getting involved. Why don't you play something different for a bit?"
"Like what?" Pietro sticks out his bottom lip.
"I don't know. Perhaps Charlie has a pack of playing cards or something you could mess around with."
"Great. Charlie, do you have a pack of playing cards we could borrow, please?" Pietro asks in his most polite voice.
"I don't want to play cards with you, cheater," Wanda disagrees.
"Well, tough Wanda, I want to play and I'm older than you!"
"No you're NOT!"
"Yes I AM!"
"Not!"
"Am so!"
"Are not!"
"Am SO!"
"Shut UP!" Ororo wails. "I'm trying to eat ice cream here!"
"Ice cream?" Kurt looks up. "Can I have some?"
"Yeah, sure, why not? Just a little bit though."
He puts his notebook down (Katherine snatches it up, quick), and goes and sits next to Ororo, who spoon-feeds him ice cream.
Minutes pass, and then Kurt speaks. "Wait here, I have to check something." He bamfs off.
Ororo creeps out the patio doors into the garden.
"MY ICE CREAM!" Kurt howls from upstairs.
"Ororo's in trouble, Ororo's in trouble," Jean sings.
* * * * *
Ororo's hiding in the shed at the bottom of the garden. It's where she always goes when she needs to hide from someone--which is more often that you'd expect. It's kind of cold, but she's prepared, just in case she has to stay out all night. And it is starting to get dark, which is why she brought her CD player, a blanket, a torch, three batteries, four candles, a box of matches, a book, and some rope. She doesn't know what the rope could be useful for--yet. But you never know. It's what they always have in films.
And Jean is sat on the sofa, smiling to herself. She knows where Ororo is, without even using her telepathy to find her. Kurt is angrily bamfing around the mansion, mumbling, "I'll kill her!" every few seconds, and throwing things around.
Maggie and Charlie are sat in the middle of it, calmly playing chess. One of the cushions off the sofa sails past Maggie's head, but he's so deep in thought he doesn't notice.
Katherine sighs and tucks her feet under her, sat in an armchair reading Kurt's autobiography. She knows Kurt won't rest until he's found Ororo and punished her in some evil, vile, violent way.
Rogue is currently babysitting for Pietro and Wanda. "You see, Pietro, Ah had this operation, and what they did was--" She stops. "No. Your father wouldn't want you to know all this, would he?"
"No no carry on," he says hurriedly, speaking even faster than usual.
"Alright, so what the surgeon had to do was turn me into a woman." She carried on, explaining in detail, Pietro looking amazed and shocked at each thing she'd had done.
Wanda, however, was sat with her back to Rogue and Pietro and was playing with something Mystique had bought her a week or so earlier to keep her quiet: A Beginners Guide To Voodoo.
"And the Dad voodoo doll needs a few more pins," she's muttering. "And the Jean one probably just wants a quick thump."
"Ow!" Jean yelps. "I just got this horrible pain in my stomach, like someone hit me with a cannonball or something."
Wanda giggles for the first time since she arrived at the mansion. "This is the best present I ever had, apart from that Swiss army knife Dad gave me."
"What a vicious little brat," Rogue mumbles to herself, hoping Wanda won't hear. "God knows what she'll be like when her powers develop."
"I heard that, heshe!" she cries angrily. "Now you're going to get it!" She grabs the Rogue doll, throws it to the ground and stamps on it.
"It's erm, not working," Rogue offers. "AAAARGGHHHH, okay, it's working now!"
"WANDA!" Maggie yells, getting up off the floor and upsetting half the chessboard. "What have I told you about that voodoo set?"
"Use it in moderation?" she asks, as he strides over to her.
"Save it for enemies of the family and special occasions! Honestly Wanda, what are we going to do with you? Lock you up?"
"CHAAARLIE! Dad's threatening me again!" Wanda yells.
Kurt gives a howl. "Wo ist sie?"
"Do you give up?" Jean asks, her eyes glinting maliciously. "Do you want to know where she is?"
"Ja, ja, JA! Tell me!" Kurt stamps his foot in frustration.
"No, I'm sorry, Kurt, but I love Ororo, and if I was to turn her in to you, with you full of murderous rage as you are, that just wouldn't be a nice thing to do."
"Jean Grey, you are the most annoying, irritating, and--damn, that's as far as my English vocabulary goes."
"Loyal?" Katherine suggests.
"Loy--no! Oh, you're so MEAN!!! All of you! She stole my ice cream! And I'm going to find her! She's hiding in the shed where she always is, isn't she?"
Jean nods.
"Well, I'm going to go and make her wish she'd never stolen that ice cream!" He stamps up to the glass patio doors and walks into them. "Okay, who cleaned those windows?"
"I did! Duh, I've been spring-cleaning, 'Crawler," Maggie says. "Perhaps if you just open the door now?"
"Yes, okay. Erm, where's the key, Maggie?"
"One word. Bamf, Kurt, bamf."
"That's three words!" Bamf.