My smug demeanor lasted up until it was time for one of our team sessions. On this day, to vary things up, I wanted to work on things we could do without our powers. At one point, that meant hand-to-hand sparring. That meant someone had to fight Laura.
...It was me. I was someone.
"Oh, shit, haha, he's coming to."
Our resident buzzsaw may have had a thing for me, but fighting was fighting. She could like me all she wanted, it wasn't going to stop her from handing me my ass. Even though I was used to sparring with her, that didn't mean I was good enough to win. And so, despite my best efforts, that eventually left me on the cold floor of the Danger Room, flat on my back, staring up at the lights with the sound of my teammates' amusement to serenade me.
"Ugh," I droned, choosing to wait until I could properly process colors instead of trying to be macho and pop right back up off of the ground.
The last thing I remembered was Laura somehow catching me in a triangle choke. I'd felt her trying to sink it in, but it hadn't been deep enough to actually put me out... until suddenly it was, and everything wound up going black. All I knew was that one minute, I was standing up, bent over, with Laura hanging off of my head and arm by her legs. I'd had a plan to work her legs free, and had been setting up for it when, *boop*, I dropped.
There were worse ways to lose, I guess. And Laura had sat down right by me to wait for me to come to. Sweet of her.
"I'm sorry," Laura said, body language showing remorse. It seemed like she thought I would resent her for beating me in front of others.
There was no reason to apologize. She bled for that skill and had earned it. It was hers to lord over those who challenged her in that domain, "Don't be sorry for being better than me. I work harder when I have someone to chase," I winked up at her.
She turned a little red and gave me a slight smile in return, "That would make two of us," She whispered so only I could hear, the little flirt. Clearly, she couldn't go too hard in front of others.
That little moment aside, even though it bit at my pride, losing to Laura in a fistfight was nothing to be ashamed of, "Yeah-yeah-yeah, laugh it up," I addressed the others as Laura helped pull me up, "You understand there's levels to this, right?"
"Yeah, and X is above yours!" Julian quipped.
I rolled my eyes, "And last time I checked, I'm above the rest of yours," I immediately shot back with a grunt as I stood up, "If Laura is the only one of you who can beat my ass, I think I'm on the right track."
"I can beat your ass too!"
I turned in the direction of the challenge, only to stop when I realized who made it, "You're made of rock, Santo," Only armored up Hisako could deal with him in hand-to-hand, which was what we were doing, "Alright, two more volunteers, or we can ask the random number generator instead."
Fist-fighting wasn't popular with a lot of the team, so there were plenty of groans, but two who would rather go of their own volition instead of being forced to do so stepped up. I sat back and spectated until the end of the session, taking great care to keep Julian and Noriko away from each other. We all hit the showers, and after leaving the locker room, I came across someone I hadn't seen in weeks.
Logan, dressed in more denim than I'd seen anyone in since anything from the mid 90s, arms crossed and leaning against a wall. Needless to say, I was ecstatic to see him.
I threw my hands up into the air, "You're back! And you've got both eyes!" I then saw that both of those eyes were glaring at me, "...And you're pissed. Why are you pissed?"
Logan gestured with his head for me to follow him, "You and I need to chit-chat, Glowstick."
I fell into step next to him as he led me to the hangar, and idly wondered if he was going to take me on some kind of personal mission. I was half right. He wanted to talk to me because of a personal reason, but it had nothing to do with flying somewhere to do something.
Something told me this wasn't going to be pleasant, and I just wanted it over with, "So, what do you want?"
Logan growled under his breath, "I'm only gonna ask you this once, so answer right the first time. You messing around with Laura?"
He had just gotten back. Why did he know about that? "Huh?" I intelligently replied. It was the wrong answer, apparently.
I quickly found the index finger of one of his hairy hands pointed uncomfortably close to my face, "Don't play dumb! I can tell when you're lying! Her scent was all over yours when I got down here!"
I swatted Logan's hand out of my face and scowled down at him, "Because I just got through fighting her at practice, genius! We were all over each other!"
Logan's body language immediately relaxed, "...Oh."
"Yeah," I said, adding a little something extra once things had calmed down, "...You're not too far off-base though," And just like that, his hackles were raised once more, and I felt very unsafe, "Why does it even matter to you anyway?"
Logan shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned against the Blackbird, "I'm her fucking DNA original, and the closest thing to family she has. I do try to look out for her."
I scoffed, "Yeah? Well, so do I. Apparently loyalty is one of my redeemable qualities," A short silence hung in the air before I decided to go for broke and get everything out in the open, "Look, I'm just going to be honest, since the only reason I care if you're mad or not is because you might try to stab me."
Logan raised an eyebrow, neither confirming nor denying this, "Okay?"
I just went ahead and blurted it out, "Laura is finer than all hell, and there's a 33% chance we're probably going to be dating by New Year's."
*SNIKT!*
I winced at the sound of Logan's claws coming through his skin, "Don't pop your claws at me. We're having a discussion here, like adults. What's your problem? I thought we were cool."
"You're a little shit, Marcher."
Compared to who, exactly? I was a high school kid. From what I'd seen, most of us were little shits. In a perfect world, who did he want trying to woo Laura? "-In my own way, yes. And I'd understand if I was dealing drugs, or leading people into bad stuff, or two-timing," I paused and thought about everything that had been mulling about the rumor mill lately, "...What exactly have you heard since you've been back?"
Logan shrugged, "Not much."
"Killer," I said to myself. At least this conversation wasn't driven by preconceived notions from inaccurate information, "Anyway, it's not like I go out and get trouble to come to me. All of the trouble I get into is exclusively because I go to this school and inherited all of the X-Men's grief."
Logan knew that. He thought highly of me. I knew he did. Most importantly, he knew he did.
The wind went right out of Logan's sails as he sighed and slouched his shoulders, "She ain't ready for a relationship like that, Glowstick. She's still getting used to interacting with people normally," He explained, "She... you're the only person other than me she really trusts. If you get bored with her and dump her, it'll probably fuck her up something fierce."
Understandable, and yet, it felt like a pretty raw opinion, "You talk to Laura about this yet?" I asked.
"The fuck do you think?" Logan snapped back.
"I think that you came down here planning to strong-arm me into agreeing with you to leave her alone."
Logan shamelessly nodded, "Yep."
To be fair, that probably would have worked on most anyone else my age. The only mistake he made was forgetting that I barely cared about my own well-being, so threatening me with bodily harm wouldn't do much of anything, if I even believed him at all in the first place.
Logan being a scary mofo was the only leverage he tended to have in cases where his being faculty wasn't enough. He didn't exactly go around maiming students, even if he really wanted to sometimes, like right then at that moment.
"Well, you might have better luck talking her out of it instead of me, because I'm not stopping her," I said, "I got dumped last month, Logan."
Where I'd meant to go with that was taken somewhere else entirely by Logan's over-aggressive brain, "So you're using Laura as a rebound!?" He bellowed.
I recoiled in confusion, "What? No, dude, shut up. I'm making a point here," It seemed like everything out of my mouth was subconsciously designed to somehow piss him off, "My point is that this shit happens. It's gonna happen - to all of us. Probably a lot. And if you really want her to get adjusted to being a functional person, she's gonna have to deal with it like the rest of us."
Being normal wasn't just learning how to talk to people, or getting accustomed to not being an assassin. It wasn't just learning how to enjoy the good things in life. It was learning how to cope with the garbage. Being a goddamn teenager meant that there were plenty of those pitfalls you had to learn how to climb out of. Hell, this was when we were supposed to figure out how to handle those things.
I continued on from there, "And who's to say I'm gonna break up with her if we get together? Maybe she'll dump me? There's already a precedent," I joked self-deprecatingly, "Maybe we won't break up at all? You don't know. No one does... except maybe Ruthie, and I didn't plan on asking her."
All of my attempts to try and sound rational must have picked at the skeptic in him, "You're a high school kid. Unless your life is in danger, you'll always think with your dick first. Hell, even if your life is in danger, you probably still will."
If he was going to keep being difficult, I was prepared make things exceedingly uncomfortable, "Believe me when I say, if I thought with my dick first and foremost, we'd be having a different talk right now," I said, trying not to look too smug when I realized he knew what I was alluding to. I still rubbed it in though, "When she turns it on, your clone is a baddie."
Clearly the last thing he wanted to think about was Laura being attractive to some stupid kid, "Just... just stop talking, or I really will stab you," He said, holding up a hand to get me to stop, "You're gonna do this the right way, aren't you?"
"Yes!" I exclaimed, offended at just how little my friends and acquaintances thought of my romantic habits, "Jesus Christ, first Hisako, now you. What, do I look like I'm gonna pay to get the poor girl into my bed?" Once again, another strike at making Logan uncomfortable, "I'm gonna take Laura on a proper date with all of the bells and whistles, and maybe not the whistles, because I'm sure that shit hurts you guys' ears. But come on! Give me some credit here!"
"Good," Logan said, taking one last opportunity to try and threaten me, "You'd better, Glowstick. Because if you don't-."
I stopped him before he could get going. It would just be a waste of both of our time, "-Stop pulling the daddy/big brother crap. It's just pissing me off. You should know better. I'm not in the business of letting my friends down on purpose," Amazingly enough, that did work in getting him to let it die, "So, are we done?"
Logan pointed his thumb in the direction of the exit, "We're done. Get out of my face."
I gladly left this uncomfortable conversation behind, "You dragged me here, ass."
Already in the bad mood that was my default setting, getting the third-degree from Logan only made me irritable. When I was irritable, I was spurred into action, and thus, I immediately took action regarding the topic of our talk.
Roaming the campus with a mood like a T-Rex with gout, I eventually found Laura hanging out in the dining hall with Cessily, Hisako, Noriko, Sofia, and Laurie. I ignored the rest of them and made a beeline for Laura herself.
My unruly self didn't even spare the time for greetings, given than I'd last seen her all of twenty minutes ago, "Laura, are you doing anything Friday night?" I abruptly asked. She shook her head no, "Wanna go out?" Her green eyes went wide and she froze in place. Eventually, she slowly nodded her head, not trusting her mouth enough to speak, "Cool beans. It's a date."
And with that, I walked away, leaving a very shell-shocked Laura and company behind. It had definitely been the most assertive example of asking someone out that most of them had probably seen. As I got farther and farther away, I heard a loud squeal of joy from what I assumed had to have been Cessily.
Perhaps it would have been a better idea to wait until it was just me and Laura alone to ask?