Chapter 22: Partners in Training
Logan stepped out the back door, closed it, turned around…and groaned when he saw who was waiting for him.
Two pairs of blue eyes studied his expression with amusement. "Hey, Wolvie, it's not like it's the end of the world or anything," Jubilee grinned. She turned to the owner of the other pair of blue eyes. "See, I told you he was going to do this."
"Yeah," Paige said, grinning as she held Jubilee's ankles. Jubilee was on her back in the grass, doing sit-ups, with Paige holding her ankles. "You did. Come on, don't tell me the big bad Wolverine's afraid of two little girls like us?" She grinned cheekily.
Logan finally found his voice "I ain't runnin' a mini-trainin' program here for wayward girls," he finally sputtered. Then he saw the tall, spare form leaning against the side of the house watching the girls do sit-ups…and amended, "For wayward ex-Academy members!"
Jono pushed away from the wall. I didn't think we'd be welcome, gel… he said to Paige.
Jubilee grabbed Paige's arm, preventing her from getting up. "Oh, come on. Wolvie won't mind. Really. After all, he doesn't think Emma did a good job training us either."
Jono looked at Logan. You don't, mate?
Slowly, reluctantly, Logan shook his head. "No. I don't. She wasn' a good teacher fer any o' you kids."
We've pretty much got an idea what we can do. We're just here for the physical stuff in the mornings, Jono said. Then you and Jubes can have the afternoons in the Danger Room.
Logan watched the three friends talk as he went through his kata. Jubilee was fairly competitive…and having to train alongside her friends might be an additional motivation. By the time he finished, they were done as well, and they eyed him with trepidation as they waited for his verdict.
"All right," he said finally. "Ya two can join us. But keep up, an' no whinin' from either one o' you." He looked at Jubilee and Paige.
"Hey, no fair, what about him?" Paige pointed indignantly at Jono.
I don't whine, gel, Jono said, narrowing his eyes as he looked at her. If he had a mouth, he'd be frowning, Logan thought. It was a shame the kid's mutant gift had blown out half his face and chest; he would have made a handsome man.
To forestall any more argument and bickering between his three pupils, Logan led the way off through the bushes, starting the daily jog around the perimeter of the Xavier estate. He and Jubilee had been doing this for almost two weeks now; she knew the route, and followed. Taking a few glances back, he noted with approval that Jubilee seemed to be toning down. While she hadn't exactly been fat before, now she was slimmer and much more muscled. Her stamina was better; she didn't have to stop as often as she had when he'd started dragging her out on his morning run. Fewer stops and better stamina and muscle tone had shaved minutes off their run time, a fact that Jubilee had found particularly pleasant; it was that much sooner that she could go in and indulge in a hot shower.
Having Paige and Jono along gave her extra motivation and distracted Jubilee from her own aches and pains. In fact, Logan decided after they had gone a quarter of the way around the estate that he liked having the others accompanying on their morning run; Jubilee spent most of her time talking a mile a minute to Jono and Paige when she usually spent that time talking to him. And he liked the quiet on his morning run.
They spent much of their time reminiscing about their days back at the Academy, tossing around comments like, "Do you remember when Emma did this?" and "Do you remember the time Sean did that?" He got quite an education into what the former headmaster and mistress had actually been doing at the school with the kids supposedly under their care, and by the time they finished their run, Logan understood why they'd chosen to join Jubilee's physical training program with him.
He checked his watch when they finished their run and was surprised to realize they'd done the run in fifteen minutes. It hadn't seemed that long to him. He and Jubilee had gotten used to doing the run in ten minutes, so the two other kids (Logan couldn't help thinking of them as kids, especially when one of the 'kids' was Sam's little sister) hadn't slowed them down too much.
"Not bad," he said gruffly, looking at the three sweating, panting people standing in front of him. "Same time tomorrow morning. Don't think that I won't be as hard on ya two as I am with Jubes; now that ya made a point o' includin' yerselves, I ain't gonna let ya slack off. If ya ain't here at seven tomorrow mornin', I'm gonna hunt ya down a' drag ya outta bed if I have ta. An' I don't care whoever else's sleep I might be disturbin' in the process," with a warning look at Paige. "If Wings in there don' like it, he can take it up with ya." He grinned.
Paige's eyes flew open. "Oooh. No, I don't think I want to explain to Warren why you're barging in on us." She shook her head, her expression almost comical. "No, I won't be late. Seven o'clock tomorrow, yes Sarge!" She snapped a sloppy military salute, winked at Jubilee, then grabbed Jono's hand. "Come on. Let's go." They disappeared into the mansion, leaving Jubilee alone with Logan.
Logan turned to Jubilee as she came up beside him. "Ya coulda warned me," he growled as Jubilee started to walk around in large circles, trying to cool down.
Jubilee shrugged. "Hey, I didn't know either," she said. "Paige just showed up in her jogging outfit and asked if I thought you'd mind if she and Jono joined us. I told her I didn't think you would. Did you mind terribly?" she asked.
Logan was about to say yes, and saw her face. "Nah," he said, reaching out to rub her shoulder. "Naw, I didn't really mind. It was a surprise, that's all."
She gave him a quick peck on the cheek, and he was again reminded forcibly of how much she'd grown when she had to drop her head just slightly. "I knew you wouldn't mind. See you at breakfast." And she picked her towel up and looped it around her neck, disappearing into the mansion.
Logan followed suit, but was mildly surprised when he got back down and found no one in the kitchen. Shrugging, he headed for the coffeemaker and poured himself a cup, then sat down and waited for the girls to come in.
Warren was the next one to walk in, yawning and rubbing his eyes. He gave Logan a glare as he poured himself a cup, and slumped into a chair at the kitchen table as he sipped.
"What?" Logan narrowed his eyes at the grumpy look in Warren's eyes. "What'd I do?"
"I woke up this morning by myself." Warren continued to pout.
"What, Paige?" Logan shook his head. "She came out to join Jubilee an' me on our mornin' run."
"Yeah. It's your fault I woke up alone." Warren grumbled.
"Hey, I didn't drag her out ta come runnin' with us. She came out herself. But now that she has invited herself, if she don't come on time, I will be draggin' her outta bed myself," Logan threatened.
Warren yelped, sitting bolt upright. "You're not invading my room first thing in the morning!"
Logan shook his head. "She made a point outta invitin' herself, She's gonna pay the price fer it now," Logan said firmly.
"But I need my beauty sleep!" Warren protested.
"Hah!" Logan punched Warren lightly on the arm. "You're beautiful enough, trust me. After all, ya got a young little thing like Paige interested in yer mug."
"And you got Jubes interested in you!" Warren shot back.
"She an' I are just friends, Warren. Don't go there." Logan warned the younger man.
Warren sat back, looking at Logan thoughtfully over the rim of his coffee cup. "Are you sure? Because when she looks at you, that's not what we see. And you went and dragged her off to your cabin for a couple of weeks. And we all know she still spends some nights in your room. Emma grumbles enough about the propriety of that so we all know. She seems to have made breaking you and Jubilee up her priority."
Logan put his cup down. "Really."
Warren realized what he'd just said. "Uh, no…um…yes…well…" He flushed. "Okay. Well, yes. But you didn't hear it from me, or I'll have a headache for a week that Hank will have to sedate me for." He looked at Logan again. "If it's any consolation, she's alone in her opinion."
"Really?" Logan was surprised.
"Yeah." Warren sighed and sipped his coffee. "Just between you and me, very few other people share her opinion. Scott and she have had arguments about it. Scott doesn't really approve, but apparently Charles doesn't mind, so Scott's determined not to let it really bother him. A couple of the others think it's not exactly right, but they know Jubilee's an adult and she can make her own decisions and face the consequences. Ororo thinks much the same thing. Hank likes the idea, so does Remy, so do some of the others…but you'll never hear them tell you that."
Logan sat back, mind whirling. "Jubes and I haven't…we haven't done anything…"
"No, but don't tell me you haven't thought about it. Remy has. Bobby has. She's really grown into a beautiful, desirable young woman, Logan. The problem is, she's only got eyes for you, so she won't even look at anybody else. Remy's gotten a little grumpy about it lately."
Ah, hell. Now Logan realized what all those dark looks he'd been getting from Remy were about. "I can't see of Jubes like that," he insisted. "Really. Not even close. She's my friend, my pal. I haven't even thought o' her like that." Except maybe that first night at the cabin, under the stars…but that had been momentary, and he had no intention of repeating it. And he'd told her that at the time.
"Hmm. Well, I guess she'll eventually get over it," Warren said. And then Ororo came downstairs, and the topic of conversation shifted.
But Logan kept thinking about it.
The Danger Room was in use when he went to see if it was available for himself and Jubilee. They'd been working on her control the last few weeks. Instead of reacting with a full-out blast as she always did, he was teaching her to evaluate a situation and learn how much force she'd require. The problem with her was that when she got into high-stress situations, she tended to react with a great deal of power, thus wearing herself out and leaving her tired and vulnerable later in a battle.
In a long, sustained battle, she'd be useless during the latter half because she expended too much energy during the first half. He'd seen that the first several simulations he put her through in the Danger Room; and it was a weakness that an enemy could easily exploit once they realized. So Logan was teaching her to respond to a threat with an equal level of force, not a greater. After all, as he explained it to her, if you swat a mosquito with your only nuclear bomb, what are you going to use when a tarantula the size of your body comes after you? She had laughed at the analogy, agreed, and concentrated on swatting mosquitoes with a swatter, not a bomb. Small threats, like the combat robots, she was expending only enough energy to disable; larger targets, like Sentinels or the Brotherhood, she used larger plasmoids for. She was getting better at it; now she just had to learn to think on her feet.
He found the room occupied, and decided to spend some time in the gym. That too, was occupied, by Emma and Scott, and he turned away quickly, not wanting to run into them. Of Jubilee there was no sign. Mystified, he went looking for her.
He found her, finally, sitting on the warm grass on the back lawn with Paige and three of the mansion's younger residents; Jay, Paige and Sam's little brother (Logan shook his head; there were too many Guthries around here. First Sam, then Paige, and now Jay; how many more could there be?); Carter, Annie's son; and Sammy, Cain's little friend. The three youngsters were watching Jubilee create shapes with her rainbow plasmoids in the air; shimmering fairies with rainbow wings, little rainbow cars that zoomed around in midair on an imaginary track, and finally a sinuous, twining Chinese dragon that breathed rainbow fire that exploded into showy displays of colored light. It was rather too bright outside to really get the full effect of them (Logan thought that must be a wonderful show when it was dark, at night) but they were still impressive nevertheless. He stared at the Chinese dragon, which resembled nothing so much as a long rainbow serpent, and told himself he had to think of a way that that particular talent could be used tactically, in a battle.
She saw him standing there, thought it was time for her lesson, and excused herself, running quickly to his side. "Are Scott and Emma done with the gym?" she asked him.
"Dunno. Let's go find out." They walked into the house, and he looked down at her. "Warren says everyone thinks we're an 'item'."
Jubilee looked down at her feet. 'Yeah. Well, I know what you said about it but I didn't really want other people to know I'm avoiding them so I kind of used you as an excuse to avoid having to confront any of them—"
Logan stopped. "Why are ya avoidin' everyone?" he asked her.
Jubilee dropped her eyes. "I'm still…really insecure…I mean, all the stuff that happened to me…You helped me a lot, back up at the cabin, but I'm still kinda 'fraid of anyone touching me…" She seemed to curl up into herself.
Logan sighed. "Oh, Jubilee. If ya spend the rest o' yer life puttin' stuff between yerself and an interested guy, yer gonna miss out on a lotta stuff."
"That's what Remy said." Jubilee's voice was still small. "He asked me if I wanted to go to Ladies' Night at the Cajun Blu Bar and Grill with him and Bobby and Rogue and Paige and Warren and I turned him down. He got a little upset, and he told me if I keep waiting for something that isn't going to happen, I'll miss out on a lot of good stuff."
"Ya will." Logan looked at her. "Listen ta me. You go an' have fun with them. Get drunk or smashed or whatever ya wanna do. Got it?"
Slowly, she nodded.
"Good. Let's go chase Scott and Emma out of the gym."