Disclaimer: ". . . And she's all set to marry Norrington just like she promised, so we're all men of our word… except for Elizabeth, who is in fact, a woman." –Captain Jack Sparrow
A/N: Apparently updating on Mondays is too hard for me to make it happen at a normal time, so we're switching to Tuesdays next week.
Part II: Logan Howlett and the Pre-Wedding Jitters
Logan can't find Rogue, which wouldn't be a problem except that he also can't find Remy.
Logan takes a moment to be horrified that he just thought of that scrawny Cajun as "Remy." He hopes he isn't coming down with some kind of mind-altering disease. He ignores the little voice in his head piping up to say, "But you can't get sick!"
Logan does not want to consider the possibility that he is on a first name basis with Remy.
Dang it.
Anyway, he can't find Rogue, he can't find Re –Gumbo, and for some reason, Kitty has dragged home a spikey-headed bruiser claiming to be a photographer.
Chuck does not seem very worried about Kitty bringing strange men home with her.
"He's a photographer, Logan."
"He's huge! And he has prison tattoos."
"Oh, they're not prison tattoos."
"They are!" Logan has been around for a very long time. He knows prison tattoos when he sees them.
"He has business cards."
Logan stares. "So does Magneto!"
Chuck's face immediately becomes sappy and Logan regrets everything.
"Is he coming to the wedding?" Chuck asks hopefully. Ever since his old friend stopped being a murderous mutant overlord, Chuck has been trying to include him in more Institute gatherings. Luckily for everyone involved, Erik isn't really the family gatherings type.
"You'll have to ask Betsy," Logan grunts. "Wade won't know." Logan isn't exactly sure if Wade knows that he is supposed to actually go to the wedding.
Chuck looks wistful. "I think I'll go give him a call," he says. "It'll be nice to catch up."
"No, wait, Chuck, you can't leave. I need your help with–" The foyer door swings shut behind Chuck and the gentle thunk it makes when it slides into place tears another hole into Logan's sanity.
"Jiiiiimmmmyyyyyyyy!"
Amazing. Logan actually had thought it was impossible for Wade to be any more annoying, but it turns out that he should never have doubted.
Wade is sitting on the railing of the second story landing, swinging inexplicably bare feet and holding a notepad in one hand and a pen in the other. It's one of Chuck's good gold-plated ink fountain pens and Logan lets a vindictive thrill run through him because he knows that it's definitely going to end up broken at some point.
Serves him right, he thinks grumpily. "What?" he grunts aloud.
"I need your help," Wade says, like he hasn't been moaning and wailing for Logan for the past ten minutes.
"With what?" Logan growls. Wade waves the notebook at him and nearly falls off the railing.
"Vows!" he chirps.
"What?"
"I haven't written my vows yet," Wade says. Logan stares at him. The wedding is tomorrow. The rehearsal dinner is in about eight hours. And Wade hasn't written his vows?
Logan didn't sign up for this inefficient, last-minute crap. "What do you expect me to do about it?" he growls.
"Help me!" Wade whines.
Incredulous, Logan throws up his hands. "You're asking me for help writing something romantic?"
Wade pauses, a thoughtful look coming over his face. "Huh. Good point. You kinda suck at that."
Logan rolls his eyes. "Yeah. So write your own vows. I'm sure Betsy will be plenty happy with whatever as long as it comes from your heart."
"But where do I start?" Wade is pouting. Logan is completely ready to stab him.
"Just… start with how you feel about her!" he says. "How you love, heck, I dunno, the way she looks in moonlight while you're both killing Hydra agents, or something. Say something about how you wanna spend the rest of your life calling her at three in the morning to bail you out of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Tell her that you love her more than you've ever loved anything in the world, that you'd die for her, you'd do anything for her. I don't know. What."
Wade is staring at him. He holds out the notebook. "Can you write some of that down?"
Logan pushes him off the railing.
000
"Logan!" Jean shrieks when he enters the room. "Thank God! We're having a problem with Betsy's dress!"
He stares. From all the screaming, he'd thought they were dying or on fire or something. "What," he starts, but as usual, doesn't get any further.
"It's the wrong size!" Betsy wails. "How am I supposed to get married in a dress that's too long and too tight?" She's sitting at her dressing table, staring dramatically at her reflection. "Am I just too fat?" she asks mournfully.
Logan hasn't been in a relationship in some years, but he still knows the answer to that one. "Of course not," he growls. "The dress is the problem, not you, darlin'." He glances at Jean. "Is there anything you can do right now?" he asks.
Jean shrugs helplessly. "We've already called the dressmaker and she's on her way over," she says. "But we don't know if it can be fixed by this evening."
Logan relaxes. The wedding isn't until tomorrow night. "But it'll be done by the wedding, right?" he says.
"Logan," Jean says exasperatedly, "having the dress fit only on the day of the wedding is hardly ideal!"
He shrugs. "Better than not fitting at all," he says. Jean glares at him and he rolls his eyes. Honestly, it's like they've all been infected with some kind of common-sense sucking parasite.
Making a mental note to have Hank look into that –he wouldn't put it past some of the X-Men's enemies to try something of the sort –Logan stoops down (slightly) too look into Betsy's eyes.
"Don't worry," he says as gently as he can manage. "Your dress will be ready in time for the wedding."
Betsy gives him a tearfully grateful smile. "Do you think so, Logan?" she says.
He knows so, and if he has to cut someone's head off or sew the dang dress himself to make that happen, so be it. "Yep," he says.
She sniffs, loudly. "Thanks." Looking around her, she says, "Oh, wow, there's still so much to do! I should start helping with… stuff." She waves a hand as if unsure of what that stuff might be.
Logan consults his mental list. "Why don't you and the wedding party make sure that everyone else's clothes are ready while you wait for the dressmaker?" he says. That should keep them all occupied for a while.
"Oh, lord!" Jean exclaims. "He's right, Betsy, we haven't even checked the bridesmaid's dresses or the tuxes for the groomsmen, and God knows that we have to pick out clothes for all the other boys, because they'll all show up in t-shirt tuxedos if we don't."
Logan leaves them fluttering about the room and goes back downstairs.
"Logan!" And here's Kitty.
"Half-Pint," he growls. "Listen, I don't wanna freak you out, but I think your photographer might have been in pris–"
"Logan!" she interrupts. "Sorry to interrupt but we've got a bigger problem! Have you seen Rogue?"
He pauses, considers. Narrows his eyes.
"No, I haven't. Not all day."
One of Kitty's eyes is huge and round and the other is squinting. It's a very impressive exasperated look. Logan would try it himself except that he doesn't want to look like an idiot.
"Uh," she says. "Well. I can't find Rogue. And," she holds up her hands like she's surrendering, "I can't seem to locate Remy either."
By the time Chuck arrives in an unhurried spin of wheels and perfectly serene aplomb, Logan is practically breathing fire.
"He's kidnapped her again, I know it," he insists not-quite-honestly to the Professor, who is definitely not taking this as seriously as he should be.
"Now, Logan," he says. Logan waits.
"What?" he asks. Chuck blinks.
"Oh," he says. "To be honest, I didn't expect you to let me finish. I didn't really have anything ready."
Logan growls and throws his hands up. "We have to go after them!"
"Logan, I am sure that Remy would never do anything to harm Rogue. The opposite might not be entirely true, but I wouldn't think that would matter to you as much."
"What? No, I know that!" Logan doesn't think Gumbo is going to hurt Rogue. He's maybe a little worried about what else they might be doing, but Rogue is a big girl and Logan doesn't run her life for her. He adds Cajun-threatening to his to-do list, but it's not the Remy and Rogue missing together thing he's upset about.
It's more the Remy and Rogue missing together thing that's sticking in his craw.
"Don't they know the rehearsal dinner is tonight?" he yells. "Rogue is in the wedding party! That Cajun is supposed to be catering!"
Honestly, this is so irresponsible.
Chuck is staring at him. "What?" he growls.
The Professor shakes his head. "I simply thought that you would be more upset about Rogue going off with Remy than the fact that they might miss the rehearsal dinner."
Logan puts his hands on his hips. "Listen, Chuck," he says, "you put me in charge of planning this wedding, okay? I didn't want the job. I don't know the first thing about planning weddings. But if I'm doing it, then I'm gonna do it right! And I don't need that Cajun and Stripes throwing any wrenches into the mix!" He pulls out his cell phone and glares at Xavier. "I've got a phone call to make."
He stomps away and ignores the way Chuck is laughing at him in his own head.
000
Logan's phone call to his old army buddy who keeps an eye on the GPS tracker he attached to Gumbo's motorcycle after the kid joined the X-Men is fruitless. Remy and Rogue apparently left it in a Walmart parking lot and what? Took a cab? Hitchhiked?
To where, is the real question.
This is frustrating, but Logan has other problems right now. His main one is standing too close to Kitty and smiling too widely at Kitty, and about to get his face caved in by Piotr.
Logan likes Piotr. He's a man of few words, and he doesn't argue when Logan tells him that he doesn't care if the legal drinking age in Russia is eleven and a half, he's in America now, and he's not drinking until he's twenty-one.
Also, Piotr looks at Half-Pint like she's the only sunshine in his cold, cold heart, and Logan has found that this is less unacceptable than any of the other options on that front.
Logan would like to make it known that he doesn't approve of the way the kids at the Institute throw themselves in and out of """relationships.""" He knows that makes him sound like an old… fuddy-duddy is the word Rogue had used once.
Rem –that Cajun had laughed so hard he'd had to leave the dinner table to calm down.
Logan doesn't care. Call him an old man, but in his day… Well, okay, so he is an old man. The point is, Logan never liked Lance. And he doesn't like this photographer either. It's not just the prison tattoos. It's also the haircut and the huge shoulders and the very bright, shiny teeth.
No one has teeth that white unless they're trying to hide something.
"He's a perfectly nice person, Logan!" Kitty says exasperatedly. "His name is–"
Logan doesn't care what his name is. "I don't care what his name is," he interrupts. "I don't like his smell."
"Logan, please tell me you are not going around smelling our wedding photographer," Kitty says. Logan growls.
"He's a fraud," he says, groundlessly.
Kitty rolls her eyes. "Okay, sure. But Betsy said I was 'an exquisite gem' for finding him, so there." She flounces away, probably to find Prison Tats.
Logan admits that he can't really argue with "exquisite gem" and decides to see how Jean is getting along.
000
The thing is, they really should have started planning this whole wedding about two months ago, when they were first informed that it would be happening. For some reason, neither Betsy or Wade (okay, so the reason for that one is obvious) actually did any planning whatsoever in those two months, and so when the Week Of appeared, the Wedding looming on the horizon, and nothing was ready, panic set in and they called on the X-Men for help.
Which is how Logan Howlett has ended up here, nodding along while Jean explains her choices of tuxedos and cummerbunds to him as if he a) understands and b) cares.
"It's fine, Red," he says for the eighth time. "It's fine. Whatever you choose, I'm positive it'll be fine."
Jean gives him a hopeful smile. "You think so?"
"Yes."
"So that's everyone then?" she looks surprised. The groomsmen (Logan and Nick Fury, though only one of them are actually confirmed to be coming) have had their tuxes ordered, the bridesmaids (Jean and Rogue) have been fitted and ready for weeks (the only part of this wedding that was on time). Jean has arranged for all of the other members of the X-Men to have appropriate clothing, and she's been running around for days doing all of this, so it makes sense that she's a little lost.
"It'll all be perfect," Logan assures her. "How's Betsy's dress?" he asks to distract her.
Jean's face lights up. "Well, the lady from the dress shop just got here, and she says that she should be able to get it all sorted out by tomorrow evening, so that's good! If no other problems arise…" she trails off meaningfully, giving Logan a Look.
He doesn't really get what she's trying to imply, but he guesses. "Uhh, Rogue?" he asks.
"Where is she?" Jean exclaims. Logan shakes his head.
"Beats me," he says wearily. "We've got other problems."
"You might want to check on Wade," Jean says sympathetically.
"Now what?" Logan groans.
"He was muttering about chimichangas and Bea Arthur," Jean says.
"That's actually pretty normal for Wade," Logan reminds her.
"Yeah, but he was also stabbing himself in the hand with a throwing star," Jean said.
Okay, so that is kind of weird. "I'll check on him," Logan says.
But he doesn't get the chance, because as soon as he gets downstairs, someone starts knocking on the front door, daintily.
Logan stops and gives the front door a hard stare. The X-Men are not a group of people who often receive visits from people who knock daintily. Frankly, they don't really receive visits from people who knock.
Bobby and Kurt stick their heads out of the kitchen and Kitty pokes her head around the corner, followed by Prison Tats. Scott pauses on one foot on the stairs. They all turn and look at the door.
Logan gestures at Ray, who is standing closest to the door. "Well, open it." Ray swallows nervously and opens the door.
"Hello, all!" a cheery British accent floats into the mansion foyer. "I'm not too late for the wedding am I?"
"Uh," says Ray.
"Oh, of course, you wouldn't know who I am. Just run along and tell Betsy that her brother is here, won't you?"
A/N: The legal drinking age in Russia is actually 18 as far as I know. It was just funnier to say 11.5.
Next Part: Logan didn't sign up to be the best man, Betsy's brother shows up to """help,""" Remy and Rogue ran off to Louisiana again, and there are too many flowers in this house.