Chance Encounter - Wolverine/X-Men Fanfic

Chapter 15: Charlie's gonna have to strap me down for this, darlin'

The sound of gentle rapping on the bedroom door roused Max from a deep sleep. She squinted as she pushed herself up to peer over Logan's shoulder, wondering who it was. What time was it? She slowly sat up and Logan tensed beside her, eying the door with a baleful gaze.

"Guys, are you gonna come out anytime soon? Professor Xavier wants to see you."

It sounded like Jean.

Max relaxed, calling out, "We'll be down in a few minutes."

She heard soft footfalls pad away from the door and moved to place her chin on Logan's shoulder, grumbling. "Well, we knew we couldn't stay in here forever."

"Yeah." He rumbled, irritated. He wasn't exactly looking forward to interacting with anybody else so soon after the extraction. Hell, he'd never been very personable to begin with, from what he knew.

Max grinned and kissed his shoulder, throwing off the covers and hopping over him.

"C'mon. Let's go put in an appearance."

Logan grunted and sat up, running a hand through the bird's nest his hair had become. A section of it stuck straight up and Max let out a sharp bark of laughter. Combined with the sour expression on his face, he looked like a malevolent puppy that had just been kicked awake. Logan gave her a look of mock irritation and she began laughing louder.

"Bitch." He muttered before yawning and standing up.

"Yep." Max grinned, raising an eyebrow. "Got it in one."

A sly grin pulled at the edges of his lips as he padded off into the bathroom. She followed him in and turned on the shower as he relieved himself. She quickly jumped under the warm spray and began trying to work the tangles out of her hair. She heard a flush and leapt into the corner of the shower as the water briefly became ice cold.

"Dammit!" she growled.

Logan gave a low chuckle as he climbed into the shower with her.

"'s what you get for laughin' at me." He chided, grinning now as he soaped himself up.

Max glared at him and smacked him, and he started laughing.

"What? Can't take it? Get out." He cocked a thumb, jabbing it back towards the door.

She quickly darted a hand forward and gripped a small patch of hair on his chest, yanking it out.

He started laughing harder.

"That all ya got, pup?"

Max let out a subvocal growl and leapt at him.

***

An hour and a half later they padded downstairs into the foyer, hair still damp. As they made their way into the sitting room, Scott looked up from the book he was reading and shook his head.

"I really need to talk to Hank about soundproofing that room." He murmured.

Max flushed briefly and Logan looked over at her with a wolfish grin.

"Ah, Logan – Max, I see you've decided to finally come down and grace us with your presence."

The professor rolled into the room as they turned to meet him. Max felt Logan tense up and quickly squeezed his hand.

"Don't." she murmured, leaning into him.

She was right. It was his natural response to even the mildest challenges to react aggressively. In this place, it'd only make life more of a pain in the ass than he wanted to deal with. Logan took a slow breath in as Max said, "Sorry for making you wait."