Lucky Me

Chapter 079


What's a better way to start off the weekend than having your behind kicked all over the Danger Room? Having it kicked in broad August daylight. The Professor was giving me and the X-people, who were still in my control, (scary) a break from attempting to teach the dumbest man made creation on earth to two-step (I dug my own grave with that one). He let us go outside for recess and hunt the other team.

Too bad for me I was the most un-experienced and within the first five minutes Storm lashed an ice storm at me in mid-flight. Because my tactics weren't quite so sharp, I ended up screaming (loudly) and falling (fast) toward the very solid earth.

That was until, "Would you stop screaming? You're giving me a headache."

It was Iceman.

"Sorry! Next time I'm falling to my death I'll be sure not to be so loud."

"That's all I ask."

"It's not like I needed your help, anyways," I pointed out defensively.

"Yeah. Right. Storm iced your wings; I don't think Kookies bounce." We reached the ground; he de-iced but didn't put me down. This I didn't notice until five seconds ticked by, I glared.

"Put me down," I ordered. He smiled.

Oh dandy, Ice-creature was in a goofy mood.

"Say the magic words."

I knew what he meant. It gave him some warped pleasure. Ever since I became his semi-boss, he loved to torture me like this. After trying to wiggle my way out of this situation, he laughed and I muttered something close to a curse at him.

May Drake be sterile and all of his children after him! -uh, wait, that didn't make sense.

"Say it," Bobby-jerk persisted.

"Put me down." I spat the next two words, "Mr. Drake." Yes, something as easy and petty as this was what gave him a rush. He's one sick ice-puppy.

Of course he put me down.

Directly, as in didn't give me any warning, just dropped his arms, and Kookie fell on her rump rather hard.

"Was that really necessary?"

Icecube soon became the moving ice sculpture and tore off on his little ice slide to the other part of the lawn. Gambit (who had been fighting off Bishop) back flipped next to my frosty, bruising self.

"Any ideas?" He asked, giving me the 'ladies man' smile. What could I say, it was good, but I preferred Jack's.

"Not as yet. What about you? Any plans?"

"Blow dem up?"

"W-what kind of plan is that?"

Gambit shrugged twirling his staff. "A simple one."

"But it's not moral or ethical or, you know, sane."

"Okay fine. Den we can blow dem up and send deir families our heartfelt apologies dat we had to blow up their loved ones, better non?"

I groaned.

"You are no help."

"I just be a hand, you be de brains, chére." I really wished I knew how to say 'bite me' in French right about then.

As Archangel flew over us and into the pool (ha! Serves him right!) I gulped.


I was supposed to make dinner today. I was frozen, thawed, rinsed and cooked. Forget making dinner, I was dinner! Just put some vegetables around me and I was basically a Thanksgiving turkey! If you couldn't tell, I felt downright horrible.

Middle of the week (oh lovely Wednesday) and I was pretty sure that Professor's little 'helpful' chats were going to numb my brain permanently. Was that what telepathy was like? Numbing people's brains?

Having an irate Wolverine in my bedroom was not a common occurrence for me. In fact, the moment I walked into my room I had to be scraped off the ceiling. Why did he have to play the cool and confidant one in the dead dark of friggin' night? What, was he a scruffy wanna-be Batman or something!?

"Hey, kid."

After relocating my tongue and stitching it back into my mouth, I effectively squeaked out a 'hi'.

"Ya know I can smell it."

Err...body odor? I didn't think I stunk. So sue me if I wasn't able to run to the shower yet!

"Sorry?"

He pushed himself off the wall, I felt like making a break for it but then had a feeling I would end up tackled and eating the flooring yet again.

"Don't think about it. Shut the door unless ya want everyone hearin'. If you bolt, I go straight to Jeannie."

What, did I have neon sign scrolling all my thoughts across my forehead or what?! I nodded and shut my door without a word. A silent minute passed by.

"Can I turn on the light?"

He gave a short chuckle. "Yeah."

When I flicked the switch I had the strongest urge to turn it right back off again. Mr. Logan stood in the middle of the room, and on a single out stretched finger dangled George's gun. I was not sure, but I think I died right then.

"When you got back, I thought it was from the scuffle Cyke told us about." Mr. Logan was going into that 'I won't take no crap lies' tone. "Then the scent stuck around with you for almost three weeks. That's when I realized you musta had it with you. One quick search in your room and I found it."

He was in my room (well, not counting now but before)! What a creep! Didn't these people believe in privacy?

Fear was a very strong emotion, and the proper one to have when facing a man who could gut me with a flick of the wrist. So I held my tongue, which had donned its boxing gloves, ready to fight, and kept it in place by biting down on it. Hard.

"Whatya doin' with a gun, kid?" Mr. Logan's eyes reminded me of a wolf's at that moment. They were narrowed and had me pinned where I stood on suddenly weak knees.

"F-found it." That was not a lie, it was self-preservation.

His eyes narrowed more. I didn't think he believed me.

"I could go to Bishop, ask him to tell me when it was fired last. It smells recent," he checked the bullets, "and there is still a shot left." Mr. Logan's eyes flicked to me again. "If the Professor knew you were hiding a firearm in your room, he'd roast you on a spit."

If I was still alive after my parents got a hold of me.

"I found it," I stated again in a firmer tone, "in Washington."

He hiked up an eyebrow. What, did he want more information? No deal. I was not going to be going into any sort of confession now.

"When was it fired?"

My jaw almost buckled shut. Mr. Logan and I held a steady gaze at each other. I was the weaker one; I wasn't stupid enough to think otherwise. But it was my secret and no one was entitled to it without my permission. Bullying me wouldn't work.

Unless he did the whole claws routine, well, then that became a matter of intelligence. I was smart enough to tell him anything in order to not get hurt.

Mr. Logan finally spoke up.

"If I ever hear, see, or smell this on you...if I smell it's been fired..." I swallowed hard. I knew a threat when I heard one. He flipped the gun in all directions; studying it, before picking up the box I had hid it in and laying it back in.

With jerky movements (since my knees still had this urge to hit the floor), I got out of his way as he walked to the door. Before leaving, he kindly reminded me that it was the girls' night to make diner.

As soon as the door shut, my knees got their wish as I hit the floor with a thud. One hand clasped above my heart, my breathing shaky and deep. I didn't think anyone would find out.

For the first time since my decision, I felt guilty.


We had two hours to prepare dinner. We had no idea what we were making. D-M suggested omelets and Julie suggested a strike. We settled on something not so hard. Something we could defrost.

Clash.

I cringed.

"That sounded expensive." Turning, Julie was silently cursing under her breath, and attempting to pick up the pieces of glass sprinkled over the floor. Okay, so we were even with the boys in the number of broken things. They killed a pot, we, I think, did in a wine glass.

What was Julie doing with a wine glass?

"Need help?" I asked, half-heartedly because I knew she'd say no.

"Bugger off."

Or she that.

"You're hurt!" D-M went to the other girl's side and began to examine the slightly bleeding fingertip. Julie must have no stomach for blood, as her right hand shook almost to the point I expected it to fly off and crash into the wall or something.

I left them to their own devices and started to stir the spaghetti. Originally we were going to just defrost several things and make them all so everyone would be happy (but I planned secretly to burn everything so they wouldn't want us to do this every day). After thirty minutes, we took a break from watching the stuff defrost and when we got back into the kitchen all the frozen food was encased in ice.

On top was a lovely little note: 'No cheating. -Bobby'.

We concocted his demise as we cooked. It was one way to pass the time.

"Ah'm going to go get something from my room," D-M announced with her normal perky self coming back. Still didn't mean I wouldn't have jumped at the slightest touch from that girl. Not that I was holding a grudge (much of one) but my ears still flinched at the ear infection she stabbed me with. Yes, she had the inhibator collar on.

Julie and I looked at each other then quickly turned away. Whatever Daisy was after in her room must have been putting up a good fight since five minutes slipped by without her return. I heard more clanking; thankfully, it was only a plate making a shaky stop on the counter top.

"Butterfingers."

She shot me the nastiest look. Her right hand's fingers were twitching and jerking. That wasn't normal. I stopped stirring to stare.

"Wot are you looking at?" She snapped, turning her back to me.

"What's wrong with your hand?"

"Nothing. Sod off."

Oh this was going to get far. Lucky for her, D-M made her appearance two seconds later. It took another half an hour for us to fix everything. It didn't look too bad. It smelt better than it looked so it passed our inspection.

Setting the table was interesting. I assigned Julie to do that and D-M went to protest but the ever-proud Julie refused to have help. I watched her like a cat would a mouse. She would shake some, but nothing else broke. Maybe she was weak from hunger? The girl was a stick with flesh after all.

Sitting down to dinner, Adam complimented us, refusing to acknowledge Julie. The others were mildly pleased but I didn't care. The nightmare was over; Julie's little accidents were interesting, Mr. Logan hadn't said anything about my new 'toy', and D-M wasn't singing that dumb Lambchop song. Life was good, which meant I had to find something to screw it up.

"Why didn't you just heal her?" I prodded at length when everyone began to chat. D-M pushed her noodles around with her fork. She was avoiding giving an answer. "Well?"

"Because Ah can't. Not even small cuts. Not with this." She tapped the new version of her collar, which were two slender bracelets.

I sighed, seemed as if I'd be getting no long drawn out answers today.


"Cruel, inhuman demons with no compassion for a girl in school."

Yes, I was talking about the X-Men. I would call them something else, something more creative and R rated, but my brain had hit the snooze button on the sarcasm. Four in the morning and my hinny was dragged out of bed and down to the hanger bay again.

Mr. Logan came pounding on my door to get me up. It worked. I got dressed in my uniform and crawled back into bed. That's when Beast showed up to try and extract me from my nice warm cocoon. Try as he might it was finally Gambit who slung me over his shoulder and escorted me down (not that I was complaining about the view).

After making it to the plane, I was unceremoniously dumped in a seat next to a yawning Rogue. At least I wasn't the only one affected by this horrible hour.

"We've located another fort."

Wonderful, great. Let's ask them to send us a brochure.

"Hopefully we'll make it there before they are all slaughtered as well."

My attention snapped. Huh? Oh...right...I shuddered. The last fort we had gone to the guards had been massacred by the people who later knocked me and Mr. Jean-Paul into a state of black abyss. Not that we shared the abyss. The only thing I think we share was uneasiness around each other.

"When we get there, we'll pair off and search thoroughly through their computer files and the like." Thank goodness the little 'Kookie in charge to the X-Men thing' was only Danger Room practice. If I was forced to do it on the field-Professor would have a lot of people to replace! Cyclops went on talking about who was who, and when it got to Blyt I was very alert.

"Blyt, you and Iceman take the northern part of the complex." I opened my mouth to say something but it was Mr. Warren who jumped in for me.

"Scott, if those two are paired up they'll get into a screaming match."

Bobby-Jerk looked offended.

"Not a screaming match, it's just a trade of friendly barbs." He turned to me with a smug expression. "And G rated, of course, for the kid."

I guessed my brain wanted to prove to Dad what a horrible idea this was.

"Would you stop calling me that!"

"Why? Logan calls you it all the time."

"Yes, well at least he probably doesn't have to make a concentrated effort not to wet the bed!"

Don't ask me where it came from, but it was there and the way everyone started to chuckle, laugh and do other things which showed humor it was going to stay.

"How would you know anything about his bed there, Kookie?"

"I-I wouldn't! But just given his personality-"

Bobby-Jerk gave me a sweater-wearing, break-out-the-snow-shovels, cold look of indifference. I must've really upset him.

"Fine, we can avoid this on the field. Bishop, you and Blyt are together. Iceman and Rogue..."

Again, I felt guilty over something that was almost deserved. Almost, but not quite.

After we landed and had to hear everything again about how to do stuff and what to look for, the pairs set off in their intended directions. It took ten minutes, but Bishop finally spoke to me.

"Blyt. Focus." I turned around in flight to tip my head in question at the man. "You're not thinking about the mission."

I know I know, if you didn't pay attention you'd end up shot up like Swiss cheese but I felt bad. It was really stupid for me to feel like a complete jerk for fighting with Bobby-Jerk, but I still did. I felt bad about insulting him and his bladder control (which I knew anything about) but I was still calling him a 'jerk' in my mind. Yeah, I made sense.

Whamp.

Tree. Mean solid tree.

"Ow."

"Point taken?" Bishop asked, reaching out a hand to help me to my feet.

"Point taken," I agreed. "Ow."

Walking behind him in a semi-straight line, I tripped over that same dumb tree's roots. I was about to make personal contact with the ground when I felt a very cold arm wrap around my waist and steady me back on my feet.

"You've got the stealth of an elephant," Iceman noted, "and the weight of one."

I snapped, "Thanks."

He shrugged and de-iced. "Cyclops thought you two might need help."

Bishop looked insulted by such a thought. Big man need help? Preposterous! He could blow up Kentucky on Saturday and still teach X-Men Sunday school the following morning! Wasn't that scary? And, no, we did not have Sunday School of the X. I would sleep in every time if we did.

While the two men walked ahead, I turned toward the tree and gave it my best snotty glare.

"I hope you get cut down and made into toilet paper."

"Blyt, put a wind under those wings," Ice-boy instructed and I followed them inside.

"Must've been a trick door," Bishop pointed out as we entered. The door was fairly hard to see. In fact, I didn't doubt we would have walked right past it if the person who used it last hadn't left it opened. And thankfully there wasn't a soul around (dead or alive) they must have booked it once they realized the big bad boys (and girls) of the Xavier's decided to be nosy.

We trekked along the under belly of the place in complete silence. Bishop, who was accustomed to this type of creep-you-out, Die-Hard building was up in front. Bobby-Jerk was second and I padded behind them, trying to absorb the things I saw and rubbing the sore spot on my head.

That tree had a very nasty right hook.

"Bishop, come in," Cyclops' voice crackled through our ear pieces. "Did you find anything or anyone?"

"Nothing," Bishop replied in a stiff voice. A big, steaming heap of nothing served over easy on bacon and toast. Bad idea, Kookie. Food was what I wanted and couldn't have. Not unless they had a vending machine...but I doubted Cyclops would let me grab a quick snack. It wouldn't be professional.

Like wearing yellow spandex underwear outside tight blue long johns was professional.

At least that was what he used to wear. All of a sudden the uniforms were getting revamped to look like the Matrix. Complete with leather like jackets that always seemed to have this mysterious wind blowing through it. I was thinking about their uniforms, sheesh, this was boring!

"This looks promising." Bishop stopped outside a tightly sealed door. It was your typical ominous black door with the code key combination thingy on the side. "Stand back."

Where? It was a long hallway with no nooks or crannies or even air vents! I started to panic as the big man in front of me began to glow a pinkish color. Oh man! He was going to blast the dumb door and I was going to end up with metal in my wings (not a pleasant experience).

The same cold arm which saved me from kissing the leaves earlier was around my waist again, pulling me away. Just as the pink began to go red, Iceman threw up an ice shield in front of us. I yelped, regardless of protected or not, as the very loud and metal blasting boom came from the other side of the sturdy ice shield.

It wasn't until Bishop gave the 'all clear' that I could focus on just how close I was to Iceman. My face was buried in the curve of his neck, one hand clutching his jacket the other one was protecting my face instinctively. He stood stock still, one hand around my waist the other straightforward, probably trying to stabilize the wall.

I jumped away like Iceboy just became Fireman. "Thanks."

"It's part of the job." He shrugged. "Can you knock this thing down?"

Giving it all I had, my strength didn't fail me (if it did I could always try to claw my way through). With an equally loud clash, the shield went bye-bye.

After a little ice skating practice to get into the room, we met up with Bishop who was busing himself by typing a million keys per second. Not that fast, but he was fast.

"Cyclops, I found their main database. From what I can detect, this is only a second-rate base. Some type of training base."

"Download what you can and meet back up at the Blackbird."

I was so glad I could be of service. Sheesh, why couldn't I have just stayed in bed?

This was so pointless.