Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made by this work.
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Where two left, three came back, Sam Guthrie earning himself bragging rights or a quick death depending on what shape Logan's bike came back in. Deciding the truck would just have to get ticketed and towed, Marie sat in the cockpit of the Blackbird taking a moment to gather her thoughts. While the flight hadn't been long, it had felt a lifetime as she finally unbuckled her belt and started off to the bomb bay doors where Sam had picked them up.
She'd flown missions with the X-men aplenty since taking on her role in a support capacity, right down to a small arsenal ranging from tasers to rubber bullets to lethal ordinance if it ever came to that. In that time she had seen a friendship grow between Logan and Jubilee, one that stung at first thinking it rivaled her own. Logan saw Jubilee as one of the guys, right down to taking her out to bars and going for rides on his bike. She swore, drank, and had her moral compass set by the gruff Canadian himself. Yet as she cleared the hatch, everything that was going on was shown in its awful severity by the fact that Logan was curled in on himself to one side of the bay, while Jubilee was hugging her knees staring at a patch of steel plated decking to avoid having to see him.
"Oh my gawd, Logan!" Marie gasped, her first faltering steps cut short by a sparkling explosion where the next would have fallen.
"Don't, just...don't. He's...broken." Jubilee managed, struggling to find the words and her breath.
The one thing the cure had stolen from her had been her lack of fear when it came to Logan, ever accepting of any pain back then knowing all she had to do was steal just enough of him to pay it back in kind. She hated that she had to fear the claws like anyone else, swearing she never would have, but the price had been high and she had still paid it being cast from Olympus, so very mortal among men and women who walked like gods.
"What happened?" Marie asked, the question she had longed yet dreaded to ask ever since both had rushed off out of the school leaving her alone.
"Victor Fucking Creed happened! Mister you wouldn't believe me if I told you! But he still tells me which fucking alley to head down past every shit smelling dumpster to find Logan there bawling about killing Jeannie, just over, and over, and fucking over again! I wanted to fucking paff him just to shut him the hell up..." Jubilee screamed, her voice cracking and breaking into a whimper as she curled in on herself.
"Jean?" Maire hissed, the name still holding a strange power over her.
Turning to look at Logan, he just laid there on the deck with his eyes clenched tightly shut, his fists balled and so very dangerous. Jealousy was a strange thing, as a girl she never thought anything of Logan's flirtatious advances to the lady doctor. She was only sixteen, hardly anything more than a child and so very cursed but still blessed to have Bobby. Now a woman in her own right, experienced and worldly, the thought of the man she had taken into her bed so torn over another...hurt. But she was used to being hurt, and knew how to bull past it.
"Jean's dead, and he chose my bed." Marie sniffed, walking to where a fire extinguisher was to take it up and point it down to her beau.
She had trust in them both, that playing the classic bitch wasn't going to have her down trying to stitch herself together in the med bay a level up. Pulling the pin and pressing the trigger, the first frosty blast of sub-zero CO2 struck Logan and had him on his feet snarling like the beast she knew he could be. She held her ground staring into his eyes as a sound like dynamite set her ears ringing and slammed him through the open hatch.
"Are you fucking crazy, shit! You deserve each other, I'm fucking outta here the moment I'm sure he ain't gonna gut you!" Jubilee snarled, her fists glowing in that way Marie knew to be the most dangerous.
The people that joked about Jubilee being a firecracker hadn't seen just what they could do if handled wrong, they hadn't been sent out to the drunken idiots that had held roman candles in their hands or played with things closer to blasting caps than toys. She had, and she knew all the control it took her friend to keep that all wrapped up tightly in what were usually nothing more than bright lights full of snaps and bangs that would just leave you deaf and blind for a spell.
"Sonovabitch..." Logan snarled stalking out gripping the hatch in hand to glare at her.
"You called?" Marie asked with an arched eyebrow.
Watching him all the while still holding the fire extinguisher, she saw his eyes grow focussed in that way when he was working off gut instinct and all those heightened senses alone. He might as well be a telepath for what he could ferret out of you, no amount of bracing yourself ever covering for millions of years of evolution pumping pheromones and musk to the trace scents into the air, by the way your hair stood on end to your posture or just how dilated your eyes were.
"I need a beer." Logan replied, turning without a word to stalk down the loading ramp.
"You...you need a beer, you fucking...I...you know what, you can just go screw yourself!" Jubilee sputtered in unbridled indignant rage.
Marie caught her before she could race after him, levelling the business end of the fire extinguisher against her in open threat. The glow around her fists faded, but they still remained ball and still dangerous. Waiting until the thrum of the elevator rising up to the school proper, Marie felt her strength falter as her legs buckled, just unable to put on the strong front she had this whole time.
"Shit, shit shit...I'm sorry Roguey..." Jubilee whispered as she caught her.
"Ah hell, we're all past sayin' sorry for actin' like a bunch o' idjits. Soon as Ro gets back I'm takin' my gawd damned vacation time." Marie breathed out in a tired voice.
"You knew I'd paff him, didn't ya?" Jubilee asked, settling down with her and hugging her hard.
"That or ya'd be getting a crash course on inflatin' a punctured lung." Marie croaked, the morbid humour the only thing keeping her from crying.
Seeing Logan there whimpering in the corner like a wounded dog had her heart nearly break in half, but to think that Jean still held that much power over him was a hard pill to swallow. But swallow it she had, because she didn't know just how she would have taken it if Bobby hadn't survived the place that had cost them so much, the Island.
She blamed that place on why they hadn't worked out after everything she had done to live her dream of just being able to touch again, to wear a bikini and go out to the pool without a care. To not fear and dread locker rooms, or a trip to the mall, or a surprise bit of affection in a sudden kiss. She had given up so much to gain just the ability to touch again.
"You knew he'd come to his senses?" Jubilee pushed further in her line of questioning.
"No, but I hoped. I also hoped if I was wrong ya would have covered the check my mouth wrote, and plenty glad we didn't have to go to the bank for that one. You okay?" Marie asked, revealing her own bravado for what it was, her own gut telling her just how to handle it all.
"I feel like tearin' out on Logan's hog the moment Sammy boy gets it back here, cause there's a man who's got some questions to answer that I ain't takin' no for an answer from'." Jubilee growled, yet the way she hugged herself telling a different story.
"I think yer just goin' lookin' for a fight so ya don't gotta go feelin' used..." Marie whispered.
Jubilee had the words to a snarky remark on her lips only to die as she looked at her friend, if anyone knew what it was to feel used it was her. Used as a proxy power supply in a madman's machination to force mutation on an unsuspecting populous without concern to whether she lived or died.
"So what if the guy was looking for Logan and we fucked each other stupid, so what if they got some kinda bad blood between them? I got what I was looking for last night, something to keep me off of thinkin' that you two dumbasses might be fucking up a good friendship with some fucking but ya know what? Like I said, you two fucking deserve another. Now to quote Logan, I need a fucking beer so if you'll excuse me..." Jubilee growled, stalking off in the fashion of the man she held as her mentor though hell would have to freeze over before she admitted it.
"I think we all need a fucking beer, he better have saved us some." Marie honestly laughed, a distraction just what she needed for the heart to heart she knew was to come.
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Sitting on a tire with his back against the brake job he'd been doing the day before until his world had so suddenly changed, he heard the elevator open and waited for their first wafting scent to roll into the garage that was his usual haunt. Working on a six pack as a starter, two crushed cans beside him already, he was on his third as they walked in and ignored him making their way to the fridge. Sure enough Lee took a Miller, while his Rogue grabbed a can of corona.
He watched them part, Jubilee stalking over to where his biker jacket hung to wrap herself up in it. She looked cold and he couldn't blame her, she'd seen him at his worst and was still getting used to having to do what had to be done. That had been something Marie had learned early on, his claws driven through her chest and the choice of live and death in pressing her bare hand to his face. Downing his beer and taking a breath to say the words that felt paltry to express how he felt, he was saved the insult and embarrassment.
"Don't even fucking try asshole..." Jubilee growled, following suit to finish her beer and beckon for one of his cans.
Pulling it free of the ring of plastic, he tossed it to her to hear a crack and hiss that sounded like another to him. Raising his in silent toast, they drank in silence, Jubilee staring at her feet with her idle hand burying itself in his jacket pocket, while he looked off to Marie to see so much written upon her face. Hurt, anger, understanding and a side helping of 'tired of his bullshit' were all plain to see.
"I know him..." Logan whispered.
"Great, who the fuck is he?" Jubilee asked, cutting him off.
"In my gut, I know I know him and he sure as hell knows me even if he kept callin' me Jimmy. Even if it felt right, right down to him callin' me his baby brother..." Logan continued, having a sip of his beer to wet his dry lips.
"Oh fuck me sideways, don't you dare fucking tell me that! Oh shit, there's no fucking way..." Jubilee shrieked.
"You think he's telling the truth?" Marie asked, ignoring her friends warranted outburst.
Logan clenched his jaw and though back to that hazy meeting, his heart hammering and blood running hot for revenge. It was all a twisted dream until he awoke from it in the back of the Blackbird, a dream of blood in the air and the woman he loved dead by his own hand. He knew in his gut parts of it were no dream, the name he roared in challenge in a bar that had two faces, right down to the beating he earned.
Popping his claws with a 'snickt', he stared at them just to make sure the impossible hadn't happened, remembering all too well a time he had clutched them broken to his chest feeling the pain so vivid and real now.
"He might have been shittin' me on some stuff, but he wasn't lyin' about us bein' brothers. He was way too mad about it when I didn't feel it in my gut..." Logan admitted, sheathing his claws to their obvious comfort.
"Great, I just fucked Logan's long lost brother. Awesome, Freud would have a field day with me." Jubilee spat with any heat, clenching her fist on something in the pocket to throw it angrily across the room.
Staring down to it thinking he'd have to tidy it up later, Logan noticed it for what it was and got to his feet to pick it on up. Turning it over in his hand twice just to be sure, he looked right back to her sullenly sipping on her beer ignoring the look thrown her way.
"Logan?" Marie asked, reading his worry written so familiar for her.
"This yours?" Logan pressed, throwing the small crumbled box back in a twisted game of catch.
Snatching it out of the air and glaring down at it, whatever irritation she had for his games evaporated right along with any colour in her face. Tearing open the package and counting three times, she clenched it tight and couldn't fight the sudden worried tears falling down her cheeks.
"Holy shit Lee, don't you dare tell me..." Marie breathed, reading into it all to clear.
"Oh my god..." Jubilee whispered, her voice shaky.
"Don't you fucking say it!" Marie snapped, crying herself in sympathy.
"Oh my god I was so drunk and tweaked out after the fight, oh my god, oh my god..." Jubilee sputtered, fighting for breath.
Closing the distance between him and his 'partner' on the battlefield, Logan crouched down and pulled her into a hug that was met with frantic clawing hands and sputtering sobs. Whatever shock Marie had worn moments before vanished, rushing over and joining in the embrace whispering apology and promising to help however she could.
"Oh fuck, I just got laid by Mister Virile's big brother without even using a rubber, I am so proper fucked..." Jubilee sobbed.
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