[Marie, Logan] Interlude: Wash me clean again.

[x-rogue.livejournal.com]

A brief discussion/healing while Angelo is off being scanned and xrayed by Hank. Squick (blood) warning for the last little bit.


Logan raised a hand tentatively. "Can I help?" He had no idea if pushing himself into her on top of Angelo would make things worse or not. "Or not yet?" Or, he supposed, not at all. It's what they had doctors for, after all. He didn't particularly like that thought, though.

Marie ignored his hand and reached out to grab the collar of his shirt, pulling him close to her. "Please? He's so afraid..."

Logan threaded his fingers into her hair carefully and dipped his head. As his lips touched hers, he /pushed/. The experience in the Danger Room had given him some clues on how to deliberately draw out her mutation. Now was as good a time as any to find out if his idea worked in more than theory.

Draining Angelo had left Marie feeling like a thief but Logan's kiss was all gift; she could almost feel his power reaching out for hers and she opened herself up to it, welcoming it in. Tilting her head to meet his mouth had made her tormented throat scream in protest at first, but it eased away as her body began to mend. Logan's mutation overlaid the residue of Angelo's in her body and she felt her skin subsiding to a normal, ideal state in response, even as his thoughts of love and security pushed the fear and fire to a place where she could control it.

The transfer went smoothly. He could feel his power, himself, being sucked out of him, but it hardly hurt at all, in comparison to the last time he'd healed her.

Soothed and healed, she broke off the kiss and burrowed against his shoulder, her arms going around his neck. "I love you," she said by way of thanks.

He stroked her back with his free hand. "I love you, too."

"People suck," she said, pulling him to sit beside her on the examination table.

He nodded his agreement, even without knowing the situation. "Yeah, they do." He slid onto the table beside her, wrapping one arm around her back. "I thought you were goin' t'dinner...?"

"We did. And we had a great dinner." Marie snuggled into his side. "After, though... some of the nice, white town boys decided they didn't like a Hispanic city boy like Angelo on their block, especially with a white girl."

Logan made an unhappy noise. "Who needs t'be a mutant-hatin' bigot when y'can be a racist asshole, huh?"

"That came after," Marie said caustically. "Someone recognized Angelo from somewhere and if it could get uglier, it did. Fortunately, they left me out of it after the first guy slammed my head into the wall and then decided that 'kick the mutie' was more fun than 'teach the white girl where she belongs'. Big mistake."

Logan nodded. Underestimating Marie could be deadly, he well knew. "Y'showed 'em how big a mistake, then?"

"Not as much as I could have. All bruises, I expect." She sounded rather proud of herself. "I didn't slip up."

He grinned. Apparently, his theory was correct, that learning the control necessary to stop just before contact would leave her with the control necessary to prevent accidents with her strength. "Glad t'hear it." She didn't need more guilt, more accidents.

"It was all good until Angelo panicked," Marie said ruefully. "Not his fault. He's been beaten up badly and then set on fire before, almost just like that. He lost it and his mutation just... took off. I tried to get him out of there but he got tendrils around my throat and... I got us away, but I had to touch him to stop him."

"I was wonderin' how that'd happened." Logan couldn't fault Angelo for reacting badly when being attacked. Hell, he'd nearly killed Marie because of a /nightmare/. "Y'gonna be okay with him in there?" he asked, tapping her head.

"Working on it," she said. "It's not good. I don't know how he does it some days." She closed her eyes and hugged Logan tightly.

He tugged her over into his lap. "I get the feelin' most of the folks in the buildin' are fucked up, some way or other."

Marie laughed a little and shook her head. "Ya think? We're all damaged. Angelo's just got the added bonus that a lot of his came from the people who were his friends, who he trusted with his life. Means he's starting two steps behind most of us on the trust scale and that makes it all harder."

Logan nodded. "He's had a rough go of it." Glancing at Marie with a small smile, he added, "Looks like he's making some pretty good friends, though."

Marie looked up at him with patient amusement. "Referring to me, are you? I'd try and say I'm not, because of what I did, but it was that or die. And... god knows he doesn't need that on his hands."

"You're a good friend, baby," Logan assured her. "I bet there's nobody he'd rather have knowin' him like y'do, now."

"I hope so. He's... he's a better friend than I expected out of anyone," she said quietly. "He really made me feel better after that whole potion mess."

"I'm glad." And he was; he'd been worried that maybe he was choosing the wrong person to look in on her, but he /trusted/ Angelo to understand her, at least a bit.

"I should change before Hank comes back with him," Marie said wearily. "I'm going to stay with him tonight. I wouldn't want to be alone with what's in his head, not right now."

Logan nodded, understanding. "D'you want me t'stay here in case he comes back while you're gone, or d'you want me t'come with you?"

Marie paused, torn. "Come with?" she asked, her voice suddenly small as she took stock of herself. "I'm not exactly all me yet and I don't want to talk to anyone else right now."

Logan being with her would certainly prevent /that/. He pressed a kiss to her hair and nudged her off his lap and to her feet, but didn't break contact with her entirely, one hand curling around her waist as he, too, dropped to his feet. "Whatever y'need, baby."

"Thanks." Leaning against him with a sigh, she let him lead her upstairs to change.

Marie finally found her keys outside the door to her room and stifled something between and laugh and a sob. "Never look for your keys on the street, especially in the dark. I never listened to my dad." She opened the door and let them in to the room.

Logan followed her in, closing the door behind them, and nudged her toward the bathroom. "Good advice. C'mon, let's get you cleaned up."

Marie threw her keys onto the coffee table and pulled off her bloodied coat and then started to strip off her clothes, dropping them carelessly as she went. "Why are people so fucking /dumb/?" she asked irritably. "I have to tell Scott what happened in case someone calls the school about a pair of mutants beating up the poor little townies."

"After y'get cleaned up," Logan said, walking into the bathroom and flicking on the lights. "Scott'n Chuck'll figure it out, if it's a problem, don't worry. 's what they do."

Stripped down to bra and panties, Marie looked at herself in the mirror, at the dried blood on her face and neck and in her hair. "I should be more upset," she said, reaching for a washcloth.

Logan walked up behind her, watching her in the mirror. "Mebbe." He reached out to stop her hand and dipped his head in close to her neck. His eyes were on hers, in the mirror. "Let me?"

Marie allowed him to stop her hand and, letting it fall, she nodded slowly.

Lowering his mouth to her skin, eyes never leaving hers, he began to make her clean.