Title: Passing the Storm
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: X-Men
Characters/Pairing: RoLo (Wolverine/Storm)
Rating: PG-13/T
Challenge/Prompt: #67: Weather
Word Count: 898
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters belong to their rightful owners, not the author.


The birds were singing. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and yet, Logan could still sense a storm brewing as he pulled his bike into the parking lot of his school. It was still strange to the wild man to think of one place as his home, let alone his school. There wasn't a single day that went by that he didn't reflect upon the irony of his situation and wonder why in the heck Scott had to kill Charles and leave him with the responsibility of having to take charge.

Oh, sure, One Eye thought that he was in charge. Logan smirked as he strode confidently toward the open doors of the Jean Grey Institute. Scott had always thought he'd been in charge, and yet, only an idiot would let the Boy Scout keep running lives into the ground. He wasn't a fool. He'd been around too long not to recognize the routine of deaths that followed Summers. The sad fact, he thought, was that only Scott seemed unable to see he was doing wrong. Even those who had chosen to stay with him didn't exactly approve of his methods.

As Logan entered his school, a warning shot through his bones and into the low pit of his stomach. He growled but didn't unsheathe his claws. Something was definitely wrong, but all the kids who passed him, talking and shrieking in their loud voices, seemed fine. Door after door, corridor after corridor, everything seemed to pass as normal until he turned toward the classroom where he had intended to stop first.

A breeze swept through the school. It was cool and didn't smell of the salt that tended to linger in the air preceding a major storm. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end. He approached cautiously and could hear the rising voice of the one in trouble long before he actually saw her.

She was talking to herself, a habit she had developed from years of speaking aloud to plants. She fussed over the interruptions of the day and contemplated aloud the problems of the students who had failed her exams that afternoon. Then, she set to questioning herself. Her teaching habits and rather or not she was truly making a difference were her primary concerns.

Logan glanced out of a window as he walked by it. The sky was still a perfect shade of blue. The wind had calmed, and the birds were still singing. Yet, he knew there was a storm on the horizon.

He paused his purposeful trek as the door to his love's classroom swung open. She walked out without seeing him, no longer speaking to herself and the perfect picture of eloquence. There wasn't a single, ivory hair out of her place on her regal head. She was completely composed, and he knew not even a telepath would suspect her troubles. She looked every bit as calm and beautiful as the weather outside.

"Stormy." She whirled to look at him, and he saw the silent emotions raging in her bright, blue eyes, emotions no one else would notice but he did. He hadn't been able to read her when they first met, let alone understand her, but over the years, he had come to read and know her perhaps even better than he did himself. Every one suspected storms and torrents of rain when she was upset. They looked to the weather more often than to her herself to see how she felt. Nobody else, not Scott or Charles or Forge or even T'Challa, would have noticed, at first, the silent storm raging in her eyes, but he did. She was picture perfect, and yet, still, he knew she was Stormy.

He also knew just how to quell her emotions and send them off in another direction entirely. He closed the distance between them with a quick determination, wrapped his burly arms tightly around her slender waist, made her laugh with surprise as he dipped her, and covered her mouth firmly with his own. The papers she'd graded, and over which she was so upset, fluttered to the floor. Breezes filled with rising heat swept through the hall. She reached for the papers, but he didn't let her go.

A clap of thunder resounded in the blue sky outside as his tongue dove into her mouth. The tip of his tongue toyed with her pearly white teeth as his skilled hands massaged the tired and tensed muscles in her lower back. Her tongue hesitantly met his, and he stroked her in response with his tongue sliding long and deep against hers. He held her against him and continued to kiss her, making sure she felt every bit of the desire, need, and love he felt for her alone in that powerful kiss.

Finally, she moaned against his lips. Only then did he release her. The birds sang louder. The sky was still crystal blue, but now the danger of the storm had truly passed. Ororo smiled down at Logan. "I missed you, too."

He grinned, took her hand in his, and squeezed. "Whadda ya say ya let gradin' th' rest o' those papers slide by fer now, little darlin'?"

Sunshine poured through the window when she smiled bigger. "I think that's a splendid idea, Wolverine." Their fingers interlaced, he led her to their bedroom.

The End