Chapter 9
Logan walked down the hall, carrying a leather men's shaving kit in one hand while rubbing at his damp hair with the towel flipped over his head. He was bare chested, water still drenching his thick coat of body hair, and wearing a pair of clean bluejeans. Three scents made him stop momentarily on his trek from the hall bathroom towards his destination. He glanced over his shoulder to see Gambit standing with a pile of wood, as Morph and Bobby hunkered down near the damaged door. It became apparent from the smell of the paint cans and the nails and other assembled tools that Gambit had taken his request seriously.
"I make sure dey do a good job, mon ami," Remy nodded to Logan. He draped the towel around his neck, and thrust the cigar between his teeth.
"Um… hi wolverine," Morph said quietly. "We um… thought we'd make it up to you and Jubilee… by cleaning up our mess…"
"Um yeah… we really blew it… we had no idea…" Bobby trailed off.
In response, Logan shot Bobby a feral glare, and grunted a response to Morph. His expression softened a tad when his eyes met the shapeshifter's. Morph heaved a sigh of relief, when Logan murmured, "Thanks."
"No problem," Gambit nodded. "I be right back, gentlemen. Keep goin' now. Got to tell Cherie where Gambit been da past half-hour. She worryin' dat we be late to dinner…"
"Logan…" Morph started, and he turned his head slightly.
"What?" Logan murmured, turning around to face him.
"I hope that I can make it up to you… by this… and whatever else… I had no idea that she and you…" Morph trailed off.
"Do me a favor an' just relax already, yer makin' me nervous," Logan grumbled. "An make sure you keep this clown on his best behavior…"
"Sure thing…" Morph nodded, face less crinkled with worry.
"I'll be good, promise… just don't skewer me…" Bobby stammered.
"I'll be watching ya," Logan glared at him. "You listen to your partner, an you listen good the next time he stops ya from doing such a damn fool stunt… there's bein' funny, and bein' malicious…"
"Um… malicious… me?" Bobby yelped.
"Let's get to work," Morph elbowed Drake. Quickly Bobby nodded and formed a sledgehammer out of ice. He began to tap at the pins holding Jubilee's ruined door in place. However he quickly turned his head when he saw his door open, and saw Jubilee poke her head out. Bobby and Morph noticed immediately, but wisely shut their mouths when Logan cast them another warning glare.
"I see it and I don't believe it," she shook her head, resting a hand on her hip. "Tweedle dee and tweedle dum…"
"Give 'em a break, darlin', they're makin' amends, an' savin' the X men a bundle doin' in house repairs on this dump," Logan chuckled.
Jubilee opened the door and peered out, her hair damp. She took a step out into the hallway, wearing a green bathrobe that came well past her knees. Clearly it was several sizes too big, and looked extremely familiar to both of them. She glanced around Logan, who had moved directly in her way. However she stepped around him and rested her hands on both her hips.
"Jubes we're sorry," Morph said quickly.
"Yeah… REALLY sorry…" Bobby added, a look of worry on his face.
"I can see that," she said, hiding a laugh behind her hand. "An' I appreciate it guys…"
"So are we forgiven?" asked Morph.
"Ask me when you guys are done," Jubilee giggled, and Bobby and Morph knew that she was halfway to not paffing them the next time they saw her face.
Holding up a blue and gold bundle, Logan coughed, "Brought a clean uniform for ya. Almost forgot that we're gonna have a danger room drill session this afternoon."
"Thanks so much," she said as she leaned over and kissed his cheek.
"Talk about lousy timing," Logan murmured, and quickly nudged Jubilee towards his door.
"What… what's…" she chuckled as he shoved her against the wall.
"Uh oh," Morph whispered, shifting temporarily into a form that resembled Rahne, the werewolf. "Trouble…"
"Outta here darlin… quick… just trust me," he urged, backing her into his room as he pressed his body to hers. She almost toppled backwards as he shoved her into the room, and slammed the door.
Scott Summers happened to pass by the doorway, hoping to see Jubilee. His jaw dropped at the sight of Morph and Bobby who were standing by a smoking charred door, slowly painting it over. Gambit stood with his arms crossed over his chest, supervising.
"What the HELL…" Scott trailed off.
"Dese two idiots went too far," Gambit grunted. "Remy simply makin' sure dey behave…"
"Morph, Bobby, explain yourself!" Scott Summers snorted.
"Um… we were trying to get Jubilee to come out of her room…" Morph said apologetically.
"And I iced over the door… and then she blew it apart…" Bobby added, pulling the pins out of the damaged door.
"What WERE you two thinking…"
"Easy Scott, Wolverine and Gambit already yell at 'em," Remy said, holding up a hand. "Dey really sorry, and dey behave dis time…"
"But where is Jubilee? I wanted to talk to her…"
"After what you say to her, she want to be alone right now," Remy said quickly.
"Yeah, she was NOT happy, and I think we ALL need to stay WAY clear of her…" said Bobby, wiping sweat off his forehead.
"But where IS she?" Cyclops demanded. Slowly Morph changed into Colossus and boosted the new door up with a grunt, while Bobby knocked the new pins in with an ice hammer.
The door slammed, and Scott turned.
"What was that?" Scott asked.
"Oh, just checking the door," Morph said, thumping on it dramatically. "You know…"
"You two have been acting screwy ever since… look, if you KNOW something about where she is, tell me now… okay?" Scott asked.
"Um, isn't it better if you didn't know?" Morph asked. "I mean the last person she wants to see now is you… no offense leader man…"
"I'm not even going to…" Scott sighed, exasperated. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and opened his mouth to say something else.
However Gambit interrupted, "Not another word, mon ami. Leave da Petit alone. You done enough damage for one day…"
"Mister…"
"Remy need to talk to you, so let's walk, eh?" Remy said. "You two keep goin'. I be back t' watch ya later…"
Morph and Bobby nodded, their faces twisted with embarrassed looks. "Yes sir… whatever you say!" Bobby called.
"I'm not even going to ask…" Scott shook his head as Gambit urged him alongside him. Again the door opened slightly, and Logan peered out to see both offenders whistling innocently.
"All right, I guess you two learned your lesson," Logan half smiled.
"Um yeah… never again," Morph nodded. "Logan I really am sorry…"
"You made up for it by covering for me just now. Thanks…" Logan nodded. He shut the door behind him and entered his room once more.
Jubilee sat on his sofa, brushing her damp hair. She looked up at Logan with a slightly panicked look, and he rolled his eyes dramatically. He walked over to his bathroom and stepped in to hang his wet towels over the rack to dry. Her clean scent still remained with the scented floral soaps she had just used, making him stop for a moment. Granted he had smelled her clean scent, for a moment, as she sat there on his sofa brushing her hair.
"Oww, stupid…" she mumbled.
"What, what's wrong?" he panicked, rushing in. She held her hairbrush, which was one of those round ones at a distance, tugging at it as she squinted.
"Stupidfreakinbrush… oohhh…" she grumbled, struggling to pick out the hair tangled around it.
"Don't pull it… ya might tear yer hair out," he urged, sitting next to her and reaching up to help her.
"It's stuck… I shoulda NEVER let Rogue talk me into using this thing… 'I'tll bulk up yuh hair an' make it look nice…' she says…" Jubilee stuck out her tongue.
"Hang on, it's stuck… cripes darlin' what did ya do… tie every flamin' strand to it?" he mumbled, trying to unwrap the locks of hair that were twisted around the circular brush. He knelt up on the sofa, so he could see what he was doing, while Jubilee squeezed her eyes shut and yelped in frustration.
"Ow, ow ow! That hurt!" she winced.
"Sorry… damn when you get stuck, you get stuck… might haveta cut this out…"
"Don't you DARE… I spent two years growing this out…" she griped.
"An you'll spend two more years tryin' to untangle it… promise I won't cut too much off…"
"Do it and die, buster," Jubilee warned him. "Some of us can't grow our hair so freakin' fast cause we don't' have healing factors…"
"Well if I screw it up, you can take a pair of scissors to mine, and maybe I can get some crazy glue," he joked.
"Shut up," she complained, but couldn't keep a straight face because the mental image was funny. "And I'll get a weed whacker…"
"Ugh, it's stuck all right…" Logan mumbled. Jubilee sighed and released the brush, which was well and truly tangled in her hair. No amount of budging would get it out.
"Ohhh this is so not fair!" she whined.
"Promise I'll be careful," he said. She squeezed her eyes shut and heard the rasp of adamantium. Logan chuckled when he saw her pretty face scrunched up in fear and frustration, and indignation. She looked cute when she was annoyed, the way her nose wrinkled up just so.
Something whispered past her ears, a breeze, and the couch shifted as Logan got up off of it. She opened one eye slowly, dreading what she would see; yet his body blocked the view of the bureau mirror as he leaned in front of her and she felt the momentary tension and release of hair falling away. The horrible snarled hair clump fell free, and the instantaneous relief was a word of difference.
"I ain't no hairdresser, so don't kill me," Logan murmured.
"What?"
"Never mind… ya needed a haircut anyway, right? Promise not to kill me when ya open your eyes…"
"I'm afraid to look," she groaned. However she shoved him away and got up, glancing in the mirror. Logan tensed when she opened her mouth in shock.
"Now darlin… it was stuck pretty damn tight… an' there was no other way…"
Jubilee burst into laughter, and Logan was not sure if histeriea or something else induced it. The flyaway bits that were considerably shorter and the pile of dark long hair indicated what he had done. Having gotten one side uneven, the other had to be cut. She glanced in the mirror, turning around, and couldn't stop from laughing.
"I don't believe it… this is so funny…"
"Um I take it I'm not dead," Logan murmured as she brushed hair off her shoulders.
"It's almost as short as it was when you first knew me…" she laughed.
"Sorry…"
"No, hey it's okay… layered flyaway look's in… it's almost a pretty good pixie cut…" she urged. Indeed the flyaway uneven bits were starting to curl slightly, and she realized someone would pay 100 dollars for something Wolverine had done in five minutes to keep from ripping her hair out in frustration from a styling brush.
"Ya had me goin' there…" he heaved a sigh of relief.
"You're lucky it's the in thing, or else you'd be so dead… as dead as Drakester and Morphie are now," she laughed.
Logan was quickly busying himself with cleaning up the hair that had fallen everywhere, and Jubilee grabbed his wastepaper basket to help him.
"It grows back, right darlin?" he said, still not sure if she was happy. Although he knew she was not totally devastated, she was moderately in shock at her hair being so short. However he soon sensed from her scent that she was getting used to it, and it was definitely something she could live with.
"Oops it's one PM… when didja say we gotta be in the D room again?" she asked.
"In ten minutes," he grumbled. "Damn… better get the threads on… you can change in the bathroom for some privacy…"
"Thanks," she nodded, kissing his cheek quickly as she grabbed her costume and rushed into his private bathroom. Logan finished cleaning up her hair and then pulled open a dresser drawer. Grabbing a clean uniform, he tossed the shirt and leggings onto the bed before digging through his closet for the other parts. Like most X men, they had multiple uniforms, made of unstable molecules, which could be cleaned like ordinary cloth. Unfortunately they did wear out, and they did tend to absorb sweat just like any other cloth, and sometimes Logan would be the first to suffer when his teammates forgot to don clean uniforms.
"I'm late, I'm so late," she mumbled, rushing out of the bathroom in the form fitting blue and gold X man uniform. It was the traditional bodysuit similar to what Scott and Morph wore, being the only clean thing Logan had found.
"Relax, I'm sure he's gonna be on his best behavior considerin' I put him in his place," Wolverine mumbled as he tugged his gloves on, and stomped his feet more securely in his boots.
"I hope you sold tickets," Jubilee murmured, leaning on him to step into her boots, and thankful that he was the same height as she.
"Forgot, but the others had ringside seats," Wolverine laughed.
"Ugh, my hair's sticking out," she mumbled, and grabbed a pair of visored sunglasses that she happened to see sitting on his dresser top. She chuckled, realizing she had sent them to him at least five years ago as a 'reminder' of her when she had joined the Gen X school temporarily. He'd always kept the pink visored glasses there near a picture of her, and several of the other X men together.
"Guess ya want those back?" he asked.
"They're yours, but can I borrow 'em?" she teased. Both of them chuckled, and then she yelped as her eyes caught sight of the time on his battered alarm clock on his bedside table.
"Better hurry it up… I ain't in the mood for round two…" he urged. His nose wrinkled when he caught a familiar scent. Frowning, he decided he was not going to waste his time confronting the perpetual thorn in his side. Reaching down he grabbed Jubilee under her knees and neck and hoisted her into his arms. The door slammed behind them as he dashed away from it.
"Hey! Put me down, you silly… this is so not necessary!" she yelped when he rushed halfway down the hall. Momentarily he forgot that he was half carrying her when he darted down the stairs far more nimbly than one would think for a 300 pound adamantium boned man. As he reached the front banister, all he could think about was getting her as far away from Scott as possible. While he wasn't sure if Scott had seen them rush by, he most certainly must have heard them laughing. Just what was one eye doin' up there anyway, Logan wondered. He had heard Scott's footsteps echoing earlier, and heard the noise of his voice asking Remy what was going on, and where she was. No less than five times in the past hour had he returned to see if she had been in her room, or if anyone had seen her. Naturally Scott might have taken on the task of running around to check and see if any stragglers were behind for Danger Room drills. Yet he was going to have to have a chat if Scott so much as said or thought anything.
"Flamin' perfect," he mumbled, reaching the main floor.
"Wolverine… Logan, you dweeb, put me down!" she laughed.
"Can't have ya bein' late now, can we?" he joked, swinging her around on his shoulder. She was stuck in a fireman's carry while he walked through the living room area, and into the stairflight that lead down towards the War Room underground complex.
"Yeah, but you're like gonna spoil me if you carry me everywhere… I'm gonna start thinking things…"
"What kinda things?" he snickered, rushing down the metal lined corridor.
Panting, Scott Summers leaned against the wall of the hallway. He was not sure of what he had just seen on his most recent foray around the mansion to look for stragglers. So far he had banged on Rogue's door, only to hear Remy's shout of protest for him to go away and come back in five. Then there was Morph and Bobby who were rushing by him on his way to the next floor down with tools in their hands. At sight of him they whistled quietly and made a lousy job of covering up whatever they had seen.
Judging by the looks on their faces, Scott could guess what they were trying to play cool about. That was why he made a point of waiting and seeing if Jubilee happened to come out of her room or anyone else's. However when he had seen Wolverine's door burst open, the blue and gold streak had burst out so fast it almost knocked him over with shock. No sooner had he heard what sounded like Jubilee's laugh then the streak was long gone.
"Scott, what are you doing?" Jean asked. He flinched.
"Yikes Jean, what are you…" he gasped, holding his chest as his heart pounded.
"You wanted us to be in the Danger Room by one thirty… what are you doing here? We're all waiting for you," Jean chided him.
"Um I was just rounding up stragglers… you know…"
"Come on dear," she urged, grabbing his arm and tugging him. "Betsy and Warren are up for their first round with Storm and the others…"
"Who's on the roster… did you happen to see Logan and Jubilee?"
"They're in the gym waiting for their session, with Rogue and Gambit… why… is something the matter?"
"Oh, nothing," Scott said, shielding his thoughts from Jean. She frowned when they reached the entrance to the Danger room however.
"Scott, you're a lousy liar…" she twisted her lips into a frown. Rounding on him, she shoved him to the wall with a TK push that pinned him flat.
"Jean what are you…"
"No Scott, what are YOU doing?" she said firmly, her headband glowing sapphire blue as her green eyes bored holes into his. "Were you sneaking around?"
"Jean, this is funny, but…"
"I'm not laughing Scott. You were spying on Jubilee weren't you?"
"Why would I spy on her? I was simply waiting to see if I could catch her and apologize…"
"Uh huh," Jean shook her head, not convinced.
"Come on Jean, let me go… this is ridiculous."
"I agree. I know what you saw. And I want you to cut it out, before you really piss me off… and end up sleeping on that rather uncomfortable narrow sofa… you know the one just outside our room…"
"Jean… please… this isn't…"
"Leave Logan and Jubilee alone," Jean said angrily. "That's what I'm talking about…"
"But I'm team leader… I just saw them walking out of his room with…"
"So you WERE spying! SHAME on you!" Jean wagged a finger at him. "Scott, you really are starting to scare me. What's gotten into you?"
"It's my responsibility to make sure that the X men…"
"Okay that does it. This is your WIFE speaking, here Scott Summers. I've stood by and watched you act out, and frankly I've been way too tolerant of it. Scott, you're becoming a pain in the butt, and people are getting sick of it. And as your wife, I'm telling you to BACK OFF…"
"But honey…"
"Don't 'honey' me, MISTER," she yelled at him. "Logan's my best friend, and he's finally found a piece of happiness for once in his life, and you're trying to ruin it. I won't let you. He deserves to be with someone who understands and accepts him…"
"But she's 18!"
"Yes, and last time I checked, that makes her an adult, in the eyes of the law. And for years she was far maturer than many of us gave her credit for. So what's your point? You and I were dating when we were 18! Not that I like to pry, but Logan has done nothing but be honorable."
"You're always defending him!" Scott protested.
"Don't EVEN start with me, Scott," Jean retorted, her mind expanding to push him more tightly against the wall. "He went through ENOUGH misery stepping aside so you and I could be together. When he could have been a bastard and come between us, he simply went away and dealt with it instead of doing something we'd both regret. Never once has he tried to ruin what we have, because he cares about me too much to hurt me."
"I always knew you two…"
"Save it. He's my FRIEND, Scott. Get OVER it. Leave him alone. And leave Jubilee alone. Got it?" Jean said firmly. Her mind grip relaxed, and Scott almost tumbled onto the floor. If not for Jean's hand steadying him and pushing him back to his feet.
"I got the message, Jean," he exhaled. Never had he see her so angry, except that last Christmas when he had chewed Gambit out for singing till three AM under Rogue's window, in the hopes of giving her a Christmas present she would never forget.
"Good," Jean said sweetly. "Now, let's go and conduct that training…"
