DISCLAIMER: The X-men are not mine.
Mystique's visit was long but calm. She spent a good two hours with Rogue and Marie in the kitchen, before going up to Rogue's room to make sure that she was being taken care of well (or at least that was her excuse for the examination). Later, she met briefly with the Professor and then spent some time with Kurt before heading home. She remarked, as she left, that she would have stayed later if she wasn't worried about finding out the secrets of what happened in the mansion at night. Once that statement had been made, Rogue had smiled sweetly and slammed the door in her face. As Raven pulled away from the house, she smiled and thought to herself that she wouldn't have it any other way.
When Rogue went up to her room, she found Remy there, sleeping. He had a note taped to his face.
"Kid- Gumbo here fell asleep during the movie. Took him to his room, but the bed was covered in crap. Hope you don't mind that I dumped him here. –Logan"
She crumpled the note and started to throw it into the trash can when she remembered something. She opened the note again, and re-read it. After thinking for a moment, she walked to Remy's room and opened the door. Sure enough, the bed was covered in all of the things that they had removed from her room earlier.
"That's strange… Ah could've sworn Ah put all of this in th' closet…unless…Mystique." She rolled her eyes and collected the corners of the comforter. When she reached her room, she noticed that her phone was blinking. She had a message. She pushed the button.
"Rogue, It's Raven. I just wanted to let you know that I noticed right away that you didn't have a bedspread. And I'd like to remind you that it is impossible to pull something like that on me. You will lose everytime." The recorder beeped and Rogue smiled.
"Love ya too, momma."
She started to put away all of Remy's things. As she slipped the small box back into the nightstand, she noticed that he was drooling.
"Gross." She slammed the drawer loud enough to cause him to inhale suddenly, and the problem was solved. She finished getting ready for bed and wrenched her teddy bear out of his hands. As she laid the comforter down on the bed, she felt a lot like she was tucking in a little child. She made sure that he was completely covered, then took another blanket and wrapped herself in it. She went to pull off her gloves, like she did every night, but remembered that that would be risky, and left them on. As she drifted off to sleep, the two thoughts that were going through her head were that Mystique had reacted very well to the situation, and that she would have to buy Gambit some of those anti-snoring nose strips.
Marie was still wired well after Mystique left, so she decided to do what she usually did when she was unable to sleep. She went down to the Lab. Hank was there, bent over something or other, and she started to sneak up behind him, before remembering how he had reacted the last time she did that. She made sure that her shoes clicked on the floor, and he turned around.
"Ah, Marie. Good evening."
"Hey there Hank. What're you up to?"
"The usual."
"Trying to figure out why Jean is able to keep on coming back to life?"
"It seems as if that will be my 'usual' for quite a few years."
"Yeah."
"Actually, it's almost midnight. So I'll be leaving shortly, whenever Robert gets here."
"Oh, right. Twi—" Before she could finish her sentence, Bobby Drake burst through the door, waving his car keys in the air and yelling, "TWINKIE RUN!"
It was a custom of theirs to hop into Bobby's car and go to the nearest store at midnight to buy twinkies. Marie had often accompanied them, since Beast felt bad leaving her alone in the lab. True to his nature, he turned to her.
"Would you like to join us?"
She smiled, "No, that's alright. You guys have fun." Bobby was bouncing up and down and he grinned as he dragged Beast towards the door.
"Thanks, Rogue Junior!"
"Marie, Robert. Her name is Marie."
"Sorry. I forgot."
She laughed. "No problem."
Bobby practically skipped out of the room and Beast grabbed his coat and hat and followed.
"Goodnight, Marie."
"'Night Uncle Hank."
He smiled and tipped his hat.
Marie turned to the counter and looked at Hank's tests. She capped the test tubes and slid them into the refrigerator. Noticing a file with her name on it, she looked around before opening it and starting to read.
Xavier set his helmet down on it's stand. It had been a hectic day. The whole mansion was on edge because of Mystique's visit, and to make things worse, she hadn't been too giving with information about the brotherhood. She had told him, however, that he would find out the whole story soon. All that she had done was confirmed that they had sent letters to several high-ranking government officials. She also elaborated that it was their own fault that they were threatening to take such drastic actions. Charles stressed his personal feelings on the matter, but silently agreed with her about the way the government was handling things. They had re-opened the registration act, and support for it was at an all time high. The military had already began construction on various containment systems for mutants of varying strengths and abilities. The Professor understood her frustration, but disagreed strongly about the way that she went about rectifying the situation. He wheeled out of Cerebro, locking the chamber behind him. He peered into the Med lab on his way to the elevator and saw Marie cleaning up an experiment. He opened the door and called to her.
"Marie?"
She turned around. "Oh, hi Charlie."
The professor smiled at the nickname that he hadn't heard often but was sure he'd hear more of in the future.
"Isn't it a bit late?"
"Yeah. I couldn't sleep, so I came down to the lab. Hank just left with Bobby. Figured I'd clean up the mess then head back upstairs."
"Sounds like a good plan. Care for some company?" He wanted to get a chance to get to know her better, since he was the only one out of the house when she first showed up.
"Sure. I'm almost finished here."
"Something I noticed... Your voice. You don't speak like either of your parents."
"Not usually, no. Since I grew up around not only them, but all of the people on the team, my accent is more central. I have been known to slip in a "sugah" here and there. And when I get upset, I tend to swear in bad French, so it's still there, just hiding."
Xavier laughed. "That makes sense."
The next day, they had a team training session. It was the first time that they got a chance to watch Marie in action. The professor had the team congregate in the control booth so that she could demonstrate the range of her abilities for them. Remy had his nose pressed up against the glass, and Rogue was standing behind him. Cyclops was on the other side of the main control panel, with his arms crossed, undoubtedly working her into a battle strategy. Jean sat in a chair next to him, watching intently. Kurt was dangling from the ceiling, and Beast and Bobby were standing behind her. Bobby was still half asleep. Storm stood directly behind the professor, who was working the controls, and Psylocke stood next to her. Colossus, Kitty, and Jubilee were behind them, Kitty and Jubilee sitting on Pete's shoulders, so they could see. Marie had started the demonstration before Wolverine arrived, since he seemed to be running late. The elevator in the back of the booth hissed, and he stepped off, only halfway in his uniform. Everyone in the booth turned to see the new arrival, and he flexed his muscles and winked before pulling the top up. His actions mostly elicited rolling eyes, with the exception of Psylocke, who licked her lips, Storm who smiled, and Jubilee, who started to giggle so much that she nearly fell off of Pete's shoulder. Logan walked up next to Rogue and raised his eyebrow at Marie, who was going through an aerial obstacle course.
"Told you that get-up looked better without the jacket."
Marie, since she didn't have a uniform of her own, was wearing one of Rogue's old yellow and green ones. She had left the bulky jacket out of the ensemble, though, because she didn't want it to get in her way. Marie executed a complex aerial routine, safely evading two charging sentinels while simultaneously destroying a third. Logan let out a low whistle.
"Oh, yeah… SO much better without the jacket."
Rogue turned and read the look on his face. She didn't much care for the look she saw.
"That's mah daughter yer talking about there."
"I can tell. She fills out that spandex in the exact same way."
Logan was egging her on, trying his best to irk her. It was his little way of getting back at her for inviting Mystique into the house. He was hoping to get her to strike out at him, which would most likely end poorly due to the cramped nature of the booth. He had done the same thing the previous day, when he called her "Ace." He knew that she hated that name, and that under normal circumstances she would have bashed his face in, waited for it to regenerate, and repeated the actions. But with Mystique there, he knew that Rogue wouldn't dare. And he had been right. When it came to Rogue's temper, he was one of the few people who knew when it was alright to push her buttons. And even better, for him at least, he knew exactly which buttons to push.
Rogue smiled sweetly and tried her hardest to refrain from punching him. "Ah'll take that as a compliment."
Betsy, who had been watching the whole thing, remarked offhandedly, "If you say so."
Remy turned to the three of them and held his ringer to his mouth. "Keep quiet. Remy's havin' a hard time watchin' wit dis babble."
"Oh, suck it up, Cajun."
"Cram it, Swamp Rat."
"Terribly sorry, luv."
Logan, Rogue, and Betsy all responded at the same time, Betsy with a certain sarcastic edge to her statement. Before Remy could respond, though, The professor switched the programming and a holographic Remy showed up in the Danger room. Marie swooped down and landed, before settling into a fighting stance. After about five minutes of fighting, Marie turned to the booth.
"Professor? Is this programmed with all of mon père's tendencies?"
The Professor pushed the intercom button. "Most of them."
"Is it ticklish?"
Remy stood up sharply as most of the booth's occupants tried to keep from laughing. Rogue was unrestrained in her laughter, though, and eventually had to lean on Gambit for support. His face bright red, he turned to the rest of the team and stepped away from Rogue, intending to make her fall.
"She's lying." He glared at Rogue, warning her to keep her mouth shut, but of course, she didn't listen.
"No, no she ain't. Watch." She reached out and poked him in the side. He bit his lip, trying to not let it bother him. But soon, she started all out tickling him, and he couldn't handle it anymore. By the time that he was on the ground, recovering from the assault, wiping tears from his face, the Professor had re-programmed the hologram. He pushed the button on the intercom again.
"It is now."
Marie turned to the shivering image, as it was reloaded. With one swift movement, she took it down, mirroring almost exactly what her mother had just done in the booth. Once she pinned "Gambit" to the ground, she reached down and absorbed enough of him to cause him to go unconscious, which made the holograph disappear. Up in the booth, most people were laughing, and Remy was silently cursing both of the women. The professor told Marie to join them in the booth and turned to the team, a small smile on his face.
"Perhaps next time, we'll see what she knows about everyone else. For now, though, I'm going to set up an auto-sim with six different stations, each with a different concentration. Split into five teams of two, and one of three. Once you've completed the course, you are free to go." He wheeled himself towards the elevator, and turned before boarding it. "Oh, and don't forget, this afternoon we're taking the children to the amusement park. Assemble in the front hallway by two o'clock."
A/N: Hope that cleared some "things" up for some people :p. Took me awhile to get ready, because of Turkey day, but there it is. Reviews are more than welcome, but you know that.