THE PREVIOUS DAY
The sunlight was barging through the opened window shades, one of the sunrays falling straight into Logan's eyes. Waking up was inevitable under those circumstances. He eagerly rubbed his eyes and then used them to shot an exploring look around his room. No, *their* room.
His sweet wife was peacefully sleeping next to him, her ebony black hair framing her face and toning her angelic characteristics. Her long, rich eyelashes marked the size of her incredibly big, nut-shaped eyes. Too bad they were closed shut and he couldn't admire her emerald green eyes. Her big, lush lips were half-open, making lots of dirty thoughts hammering Logan's mind. Thankfully, she wasn't drooling on her pillow too, or else the perfect image would be instantly destroyed.
Logan sniffed inquisitively around the room, trying to locate a fresh trail of his wife towards the adjacent bathroom and back. Finding nothing, he was pleased to insure himself that his wife wasn't one of those who get up early in the morning, visit the bathroom to make themselves beautiful, and then get back on the bed and pretend to be asleep, letting their boyfriends/husbands think that they always wake up in the morning looking like goddesses.
But apparently his Gina was a natural goddess.
When she was first hired by Professor X as a replacement teacher (for the many times when the X-Men were missing in action) in the Institute based at their mansion, her sultry Italian good looks was the first thing to strike him. Wolverine soon found out that she had come from Italy, a small village in Sicily to be more specific, where she had lived with her mother all of her life. Her lonely life there as a young girl had made her turn her attention towards books, and when she finished school she left her mother and her strictness and went to college in Perugia. There she became a specialist in any kind of Literature, thus drawing the attention of Xavier as a very promising Literature teacher. At the time she wasn't even aware of her mutation, some kind of automatic translation, making her able to communicate with ease with people of any nationality. While talking to some Russian tourists, for example, she seemed to perfectly speak Russian to them, while she had thought that they were fluent in Italian.
As many days passed with her living in the mansion, it eventually turned out that Gina was one of the women who just didn't realise how gorgeous they are. Her European attitude towards most situations, as well as her useful in teaching ability, soon made her a constant, irreplaceable teacher, while her naive and childish character made her all the more likeable to most people sharing the same home with her. She was perfectly fine with mutants claiming their rights, though she never thought of using her own powers for something else beyond teaching. There is no need to mention that Logan fell for her hard.
He had no difficulty in luring her to his bed, of course.
Then they started dating, her pleasant character making it all the easier without her actually being perky and annoying. As they spent a few months together, Logan was able to shape a full impression on her character. He thought she would have been the ideal example of a brunette bimbo, if it wasn't for her notorious mania on classy literature.
So, she was like an intellectual bimbo, pretty and childish on the one side, but deeply in cultural thinking on the other side. Like all intellectual minds, she could never rely on her memory for anything. *She* was the one forgetting their anniversaries in this relationship.
As time went by, Logan found himself tangled in Gina's love-web. He thought of proposing to her, but she had to pass two tests first. The first one; she had already passed it. She managed to be alive for several months while dating Wolverine.
The second test wasn't something that she should do to prove herself, but something that Logan would have to think about himself. He spent a few days trying to find out if this relationship really fulfilled him, or if he was just compromising with Gina, since he couldn't have Jean.
After what turned out to be weeks of self-knowing, he decided to give up thinking and do what he was the best at doing; follow his instinct.
Fighting the loner inside him for Gina's sake, he even proposed at her unexpectedly during a lunch with all of the X-Men present, making Drake choke on his soup and Jean to spill wine all over the table in her excitement, all the time saying 'I'll drink to that!'.
Gina never actually said yes, because she was squealing all the time. As soon as she gave him an insuring kiss, she ran off to town with all the girls (Jean included) to try out wedding gowns and such marriage stuff.
She was being a bit scary after that, acting like a crazed bride-to-be, but it all subsided when they finally got married. Her only problem was that her mother couldn't make it to the wedding, due to her fear of airplanes and some slight sickness. That excluded the possibility to bring her along with the X-Jet too.
Six months had passed since the wedding and Logan was falling for her more and more by each day, not that he was her little bitch or anything of course. Gina never tried to suffocate his independence.
But he was doing it himself every time he would watch her sleep like an angel under the sunlight. Like now.
Still watching her, he silently promised to himself to never hurt his angel.
As she woke up, she blinked her eyes twice and stretched her hands together. She then slowly cocked her head towards him, looking at him with soul-binding eyes and smiled lazily.
"You're awake then?"
"Yeah. Mornin' sunshine." It seemed highly appropriate, since the sunshine was blinding her eyes at the time.
"Good morning to you too, Logan." she stretched her hands once more, but Logan grabbed them, pulling her into his arms for a lock...that eventually turned into sweet cuddling.
As she rested in his arms, trying not to drift back into sleep again, she finally resulted to sugary chit-chat.
"This is pure perfection..." she said, a dreamy expression on her face.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean it's just plain perfect...living together...the two of us..." she was slowly turning into a creature who jumped out of Barbara Cartland books...not that she would read such rubbish...not that Logan was reading such stuff either...
"Well, I guess it is. The hundred of us..." he said, adding all the fellow mutants and students who lived under the same roof in her happiness equation.
"Well, 101 by tomorrow..." she added in turn.
"Why? Who's coming tomorrow?"
"...Mom."
"...!" Logan felt like a big track made of adamantium barged into their room (on the second floor?) and run over him, taking him out of the window and straight into the crystal-cold waters of the lake beside the mansion. Not physically, of course, but it still hurt like a bitch.
Elisa.
Gina's mother. The one who grew her up all alone, although she had been a widow almost since her daughter's birth. Gina's descriptions of her mother gave away a very strict and grumpy woman, but she had toned to him that her mother had been all her life up to the day she left for college, and that she owes her everything. She hadn't been with them at the wedding, and Logan didn't need to be a psychic to suspect it was out of Elisa's disappointment of her only child marrying a non-Sicilian.
He knew that even Gina couldn't be flawless. Her mother was surely going to prove herself a big flaw.
"So...Your mom's coming to visit, huh? I guess her leg is better now, huh? And isn't she afraid of airplanes anymore?" Logan slowly started turning into the Spanish Inquisition.
"Her leg is much better. She's going to take some pills and sleep through the entire trip. Is that enough?" she said, a little irritation colouring her voice.
"Why haven't you told me earlier?" Logan asked, a bit harshly.
Gina characteristically poked the side of her head with her index finger twice, reminding him of her memory problem. She always forgets things anyway...why not something unpleasant like this?
"Okay. Forgiven." he smiled weakly at her. The blow from the inexistent truck had taken its toll on him.
As they hugged, he heard a small "Ow!" coming out of her mouth, indicating that she must have remembered something else as well...equally unpleasant, apparently.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you some other things about my mother..." she said, innocently biting her index finger through her lips.
"I'm listening..." he said smiling, his amusement mixed with ever-growing worry.
"Weeeeell...Mom has some other issues, too. She's a bit of a racist."
"You mean what? She hates black people? Or is she a homophobe?" Logan's worry grew much bigger than any amusement. He hoped they wouldn't have to hide Storm in the cellar for as long as his mother-in-law from Sicily would stay there...it could prove destructive for the local weather.
"Oh, I haven't even given much thought at these matters...Truth is... She hates..."
"...she hates...?" Logan repeated in encouragement.
"...mutants."
That was more than Logan could possibly expect. "Wait a minute. *You* are a mutant. Doesn't your mother know that her only child is a mutant?"
"Eeeeeerr...You see, my mutation isn't even obvious to *me*, so I thought I had better not tell-"
"I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS! We live in a building with legions of mutant children! Do you really expect your mother to stay in here and *not* notice that your students are little kiddies with transparent skin and horns coming out of their butts?"
Gina had adopted a really dumb expression by then, seemingly thinking over Wolverine's rightful points. "...That never crossed my mind." she answered, innocently looking back at him.
"If your mom really dislikes mutants, she will have a heart attack as soon as she sets her foot in here! What have you told her about this school?"
"That it's a border school for special kids. It IS the truth, after all."
"How are you going to explain to her the function of the X-Men?" sometimes Logan could barely understand the logic of his wife's thinking.
"I can tell her that they're simply teachers. That's what you guys are, up to some level."
"And what about the freaky looking children?"
"Does she have to see them?" she questioned with unnerving ease.
Logan started thinking that Storm would probably get away with it...but apparently 50 poor mutants kids would have to remain locked up in the cellar until Elisa would go back home (by Gina's logic, at least).
"How will we make her *not* see those kids, Gina?" Logan almost never called Gina by her name. It was usually 'sweetie' or 'sunshine' or something similar. But the matter was now too serious for him to go all sugary. None of them had realised that Gina had by now left the safety of his arms and have gone back to her side of the king-size bed, looking at him with stubborn irritation. "Hide them on the trees?" he said, forgetting that he dared not give such ideas to that woman.
"Actually, I was thinking of moving their stuff down at the cellar for a while..."
Doh!
"Never mind that question. Just tell me this one thing; what if something urgent happens, like the Juggernaught barging into the mansion? What will your mother think? How will we explain to her?"
"Uhmmmm...I guess we'll have to improvise in that case." this time she managed to accidentally chew on her finger. "Ow!"
"Aw, my baby's hurt" he said, picking up her hurt finger and kissing it to make it heal.
"Promise me you won't upset my mom, Logan." Gina said, ignoring her hurting finger.
"I can't promise..."
Gina pouted and mentally prepared herself to get off the bed and give him hell for his refusal for the rest of the day.
"...I can swear however. I swear I won't do anything to upset your mother. I'll also give my best shot about the mutant-hiding thing." What the hell, an old woman from Italy couldn't be THAT bad. She probably wouldn't even be able to speak English... hopefully.
"Awww you DO love me after all!" she said, pulling him into a fiery morning kiss.
"If loving you was a tiny little sin, then I would already have secured my place in hell for the next billion years."
Hearing this, Gina pulled him in another kiss and pinned him on the bed while devouring his mouth.
It seemed that Logan WAS reading Barbara Cartland books after all.
The sunlight was barging through the opened window shades, one of the sunrays falling straight into Logan's eyes. Waking up was inevitable under those circumstances. He eagerly rubbed his eyes and then used them to shot an exploring look around his room. No, *their* room.
His sweet wife was peacefully sleeping next to him, her ebony black hair framing her face and toning her angelic characteristics. Her long, rich eyelashes marked the size of her incredibly big, nut-shaped eyes. Too bad they were closed shut and he couldn't admire her emerald green eyes. Her big, lush lips were half-open, making lots of dirty thoughts hammering Logan's mind. Thankfully, she wasn't drooling on her pillow too, or else the perfect image would be instantly destroyed.
Logan sniffed inquisitively around the room, trying to locate a fresh trail of his wife towards the adjacent bathroom and back. Finding nothing, he was pleased to insure himself that his wife wasn't one of those who get up early in the morning, visit the bathroom to make themselves beautiful, and then get back on the bed and pretend to be asleep, letting their boyfriends/husbands think that they always wake up in the morning looking like goddesses.
But apparently his Gina was a natural goddess.
When she was first hired by Professor X as a replacement teacher (for the many times when the X-Men were missing in action) in the Institute based at their mansion, her sultry Italian good looks was the first thing to strike him. Wolverine soon found out that she had come from Italy, a small village in Sicily to be more specific, where she had lived with her mother all of her life. Her lonely life there as a young girl had made her turn her attention towards books, and when she finished school she left her mother and her strictness and went to college in Perugia. There she became a specialist in any kind of Literature, thus drawing the attention of Xavier as a very promising Literature teacher. At the time she wasn't even aware of her mutation, some kind of automatic translation, making her able to communicate with ease with people of any nationality. While talking to some Russian tourists, for example, she seemed to perfectly speak Russian to them, while she had thought that they were fluent in Italian.
As many days passed with her living in the mansion, it eventually turned out that Gina was one of the women who just didn't realise how gorgeous they are. Her European attitude towards most situations, as well as her useful in teaching ability, soon made her a constant, irreplaceable teacher, while her naive and childish character made her all the more likeable to most people sharing the same home with her. She was perfectly fine with mutants claiming their rights, though she never thought of using her own powers for something else beyond teaching. There is no need to mention that Logan fell for her hard.
He had no difficulty in luring her to his bed, of course.
Then they started dating, her pleasant character making it all the easier without her actually being perky and annoying. As they spent a few months together, Logan was able to shape a full impression on her character. He thought she would have been the ideal example of a brunette bimbo, if it wasn't for her notorious mania on classy literature.
So, she was like an intellectual bimbo, pretty and childish on the one side, but deeply in cultural thinking on the other side. Like all intellectual minds, she could never rely on her memory for anything. *She* was the one forgetting their anniversaries in this relationship.
As time went by, Logan found himself tangled in Gina's love-web. He thought of proposing to her, but she had to pass two tests first. The first one; she had already passed it. She managed to be alive for several months while dating Wolverine.
The second test wasn't something that she should do to prove herself, but something that Logan would have to think about himself. He spent a few days trying to find out if this relationship really fulfilled him, or if he was just compromising with Gina, since he couldn't have Jean.
After what turned out to be weeks of self-knowing, he decided to give up thinking and do what he was the best at doing; follow his instinct.
Fighting the loner inside him for Gina's sake, he even proposed at her unexpectedly during a lunch with all of the X-Men present, making Drake choke on his soup and Jean to spill wine all over the table in her excitement, all the time saying 'I'll drink to that!'.
Gina never actually said yes, because she was squealing all the time. As soon as she gave him an insuring kiss, she ran off to town with all the girls (Jean included) to try out wedding gowns and such marriage stuff.
She was being a bit scary after that, acting like a crazed bride-to-be, but it all subsided when they finally got married. Her only problem was that her mother couldn't make it to the wedding, due to her fear of airplanes and some slight sickness. That excluded the possibility to bring her along with the X-Jet too.
Six months had passed since the wedding and Logan was falling for her more and more by each day, not that he was her little bitch or anything of course. Gina never tried to suffocate his independence.
But he was doing it himself every time he would watch her sleep like an angel under the sunlight. Like now.
Still watching her, he silently promised to himself to never hurt his angel.
As she woke up, she blinked her eyes twice and stretched her hands together. She then slowly cocked her head towards him, looking at him with soul-binding eyes and smiled lazily.
"You're awake then?"
"Yeah. Mornin' sunshine." It seemed highly appropriate, since the sunshine was blinding her eyes at the time.
"Good morning to you too, Logan." she stretched her hands once more, but Logan grabbed them, pulling her into his arms for a lock...that eventually turned into sweet cuddling.
As she rested in his arms, trying not to drift back into sleep again, she finally resulted to sugary chit-chat.
"This is pure perfection..." she said, a dreamy expression on her face.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean it's just plain perfect...living together...the two of us..." she was slowly turning into a creature who jumped out of Barbara Cartland books...not that she would read such rubbish...not that Logan was reading such stuff either...
"Well, I guess it is. The hundred of us..." he said, adding all the fellow mutants and students who lived under the same roof in her happiness equation.
"Well, 101 by tomorrow..." she added in turn.
"Why? Who's coming tomorrow?"
"...Mom."
"...!" Logan felt like a big track made of adamantium barged into their room (on the second floor?) and run over him, taking him out of the window and straight into the crystal-cold waters of the lake beside the mansion. Not physically, of course, but it still hurt like a bitch.
Elisa.
Gina's mother. The one who grew her up all alone, although she had been a widow almost since her daughter's birth. Gina's descriptions of her mother gave away a very strict and grumpy woman, but she had toned to him that her mother had been all her life up to the day she left for college, and that she owes her everything. She hadn't been with them at the wedding, and Logan didn't need to be a psychic to suspect it was out of Elisa's disappointment of her only child marrying a non-Sicilian.
He knew that even Gina couldn't be flawless. Her mother was surely going to prove herself a big flaw.
"So...Your mom's coming to visit, huh? I guess her leg is better now, huh? And isn't she afraid of airplanes anymore?" Logan slowly started turning into the Spanish Inquisition.
"Her leg is much better. She's going to take some pills and sleep through the entire trip. Is that enough?" she said, a little irritation colouring her voice.
"Why haven't you told me earlier?" Logan asked, a bit harshly.
Gina characteristically poked the side of her head with her index finger twice, reminding him of her memory problem. She always forgets things anyway...why not something unpleasant like this?
"Okay. Forgiven." he smiled weakly at her. The blow from the inexistent truck had taken its toll on him.
As they hugged, he heard a small "Ow!" coming out of her mouth, indicating that she must have remembered something else as well...equally unpleasant, apparently.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you some other things about my mother..." she said, innocently biting her index finger through her lips.
"I'm listening..." he said smiling, his amusement mixed with ever-growing worry.
"Weeeeell...Mom has some other issues, too. She's a bit of a racist."
"You mean what? She hates black people? Or is she a homophobe?" Logan's worry grew much bigger than any amusement. He hoped they wouldn't have to hide Storm in the cellar for as long as his mother-in-law from Sicily would stay there...it could prove destructive for the local weather.
"Oh, I haven't even given much thought at these matters...Truth is... She hates..."
"...she hates...?" Logan repeated in encouragement.
"...mutants."
That was more than Logan could possibly expect. "Wait a minute. *You* are a mutant. Doesn't your mother know that her only child is a mutant?"
"Eeeeeerr...You see, my mutation isn't even obvious to *me*, so I thought I had better not tell-"
"I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS! We live in a building with legions of mutant children! Do you really expect your mother to stay in here and *not* notice that your students are little kiddies with transparent skin and horns coming out of their butts?"
Gina had adopted a really dumb expression by then, seemingly thinking over Wolverine's rightful points. "...That never crossed my mind." she answered, innocently looking back at him.
"If your mom really dislikes mutants, she will have a heart attack as soon as she sets her foot in here! What have you told her about this school?"
"That it's a border school for special kids. It IS the truth, after all."
"How are you going to explain to her the function of the X-Men?" sometimes Logan could barely understand the logic of his wife's thinking.
"I can tell her that they're simply teachers. That's what you guys are, up to some level."
"And what about the freaky looking children?"
"Does she have to see them?" she questioned with unnerving ease.
Logan started thinking that Storm would probably get away with it...but apparently 50 poor mutants kids would have to remain locked up in the cellar until Elisa would go back home (by Gina's logic, at least).
"How will we make her *not* see those kids, Gina?" Logan almost never called Gina by her name. It was usually 'sweetie' or 'sunshine' or something similar. But the matter was now too serious for him to go all sugary. None of them had realised that Gina had by now left the safety of his arms and have gone back to her side of the king-size bed, looking at him with stubborn irritation. "Hide them on the trees?" he said, forgetting that he dared not give such ideas to that woman.
"Actually, I was thinking of moving their stuff down at the cellar for a while..."
Doh!
"Never mind that question. Just tell me this one thing; what if something urgent happens, like the Juggernaught barging into the mansion? What will your mother think? How will we explain to her?"
"Uhmmmm...I guess we'll have to improvise in that case." this time she managed to accidentally chew on her finger. "Ow!"
"Aw, my baby's hurt" he said, picking up her hurt finger and kissing it to make it heal.
"Promise me you won't upset my mom, Logan." Gina said, ignoring her hurting finger.
"I can't promise..."
Gina pouted and mentally prepared herself to get off the bed and give him hell for his refusal for the rest of the day.
"...I can swear however. I swear I won't do anything to upset your mother. I'll also give my best shot about the mutant-hiding thing." What the hell, an old woman from Italy couldn't be THAT bad. She probably wouldn't even be able to speak English... hopefully.
"Awww you DO love me after all!" she said, pulling him into a fiery morning kiss.
"If loving you was a tiny little sin, then I would already have secured my place in hell for the next billion years."
Hearing this, Gina pulled him in another kiss and pinned him on the bed while devouring his mouth.
It seemed that Logan WAS reading Barbara Cartland books after all.