With Friends Like These (Part Two)

With three large bags that weren't my own in hand, I walked through the mansion looking for someone. There weren't many kids left populating the halls, so I didn't come across many others in my search. At this point, finding who I was looking for wasn't the problem. It was getting her to pay attention that was the issue.

I found Laura sitting by herself on a balcony, watching the activity down below at the front of the school with all of the other students leaving. The sound of me dropping her bags near her got her to turn around with a start.

When I usually approached her, she would know I was coming from a mile away. She also wouldn't say anything and would just go back to what she was doing. Not so much this time. Maybe because I had three bags full of her stuff to make my own scent more subtle.

"Yo," I greeted while her eyes were still wide with bewilderment, "Ass up. We've gotta go."

She did not get up from where she sat on the banister, "I am staying here for the summer. I have no home or anywhere else to go to," She looked down at the bags full of her things and then turned her sharp green eyes up to me, "Please return my things to my room."

That was not so much a request, as it was a veiled threat. On any other day, I might have taken the time to heed it. This was not one of those days.

"Nope. Apparently, you're coming home with me," I told her and watched her mouth fall open, "I already called my parents and cleared it with them. If it makes you feel any better, Saberwolf is coming too!"

Laura recovered and shook her head, "Saberwolf will never be able to get past airport security. He is a walking weapon. Even I will have difficulty being cleared to board an airplane."

Was she making excuses as to why she couldn't go? Silly girl. Did she not think that these things would be covered? "It's a good thing we're not flying commercial then, isn't it?"

Her brow furrowed. She was temporarily at a loss, "I... do not understand."

Explanation came in the form of her DNA source, walking out onto the balcony with news, "Glowstick, I got it cleared with the upper brass. I can take the Blackbird and drop all three of you off in San Fran. We all ready to go?" I pointed to Logan as the solution to my/our problem.

Laura got up from her seat and walked over sternly to her... father? Brother? Whatever relationship the two of them represented, "Logan? What is going on?"

He had the good grace to look sheepish, seeing as how he had made a decision involving her, "Well, I figured, we're trying to get you to have a more normal time of things. So why not give you the chance to have a real summer vacation too?"

The word vacation seemed like a foreign word to her, at least regarding her getting to have one, "I... you... what?"

Logan sighed and rubbed his knuckles where his claws came out from, "Long story short: you trust him. So he's taking you to hang out with him for a while. If you like it, you can stay there longer. If you don't, I'll bring you back," He stopped and put on a heartfelt look, "I just want you to give it a try, darlin'."

Laura seemed to shrink in on herself, "I do not wish to do this? Why can I not just stay here?"

"Because no one's gonna be here," Mister Logan rebutted, "Just some of the staff and other X-Men, and a handful of kids that I know you won't try and do anything with."

"You will also be here," Laura tried to point out, only to be rebuked with a thumbs-down, "No?"

"No I won't," Mister Logan explained, "I got business to take care of. Business that'll be taking me far and wide."

"I will go with you."

Mister Logan gave her a look, "This isn't exactly nice business I plan on getting up to," Laura continued to just stare at him as though that mattered to her, "...Right. You're still not going."

Laura looked over at me, and then back to Mister Logan, "I do not want to go with Bellamy," She said resolutely. It came as a bit of a surprise to the both of us. I knew she wasn't happy with me, but that was a bit far.

Mister Logan and I looked at each other before he pointed over at the obstinate girl before us, "What did you do to her?"

A perfectly reasonable question. Better that it didn't sound threatening, so I guess I'd earned some kind of benefit of the doubt, "Nothing directly. I mean, I think I know what the problem is though, and I'd like to handle it, but she hasn't been making it easy."

"You sorry for whatever you did?"

"I've apologized like three times. I'd have brought a peace offering by now, but I don't know what she likes."

For some reason, that managed to get a few chuckles out of Mister Logan, "Well this should do nicely then. Take her around, show her a good time. A good, peaceful time," He made sure to specify, looking between the two of us before focusing in on me, "Do whatever the fuck it is you brats are supposed to do with time off."

Laura got as close to pouting as I had ever seen from her, "I am still standing right here," She remarked in return for Logan and I talking about her between ourselves.

I smiled apologetically. It was pretty condescending to do something like that, "We know. But he told me to do this, and I don't have any problems with it. I already got the money back for my ticket, and my folks are expecting you, me, and a big metal wolf at the front door in the next three hours."

Laura glared my way, and I took a step back, only for Mister Logan to step between us, scowling down at his clone, "Oh, no. Don't you blame him. This ain't him. If it was, I'd have thrown this whole thing right at his feet from the start," He told her, pointing a thumb at himself, "This is me. I'm the one making you do this. If you wanna get pissed at somebody, get pissed at me, but you're going."

I got out of the way and tried to slip over to the door just in case I needed to make a quick getaway. Two very tough, very intense people with claws, potentially about to go at it on an open balcony? I didn't want to be anywhere near that one. I mean... if it happened, I was going to watch it, but I would have preferred to be at a safer distance.

Laura growled at Mister Logan, who didn't blink. Eventually, she turned, stomped over to grab her bags, then stomped off inside. She made sure to stop and cut her eyes at me, if only to make sure that I knew she was not happy with this.

She didn't need to worry. That point had been made abundantly clear.

I waited until I figured she was out of earshot (which was quite a distance) before I went to Mister Logan again, "She's gonna be miserable the whole time we're in San Francisco. You know that, right?"

I mistakenly believed that he felt this would be his problem. He rolled his eyes at me, "Tough shit. She made a promise that she would actually try to be normal this time," Clearly, he intended on making her try to stick out school life, "And it's not like I'm sending her somewhere she's never been with someone she doesn't know. She knows you. She knows that city. So it shouldn't be weird."

And yet, it was going to be. There was no way it wouldn't be, "It's gonna be weird. This whole thing's gonna be weird and uncomfortable. Why am I doing this again?"

His hand reached around the back of my neck as he pushed me inside, "Same reason she's doing it. Because I told you to. Now get your pet robot and get your ass to the hangar," He ordered.

I stumbled forward a few steps, taken by surprise and knocked off-balance. Fucker. I was going to get him for that, "You know, one of these days, I'm gonna whoop your ass," I warned him. He didn't really heed it.

Patronizing wasn't a strong enough term to describe the way he responded, "Is one of these days today? Because if not, I don't care. Ass on the plane, Glowstick."

He was so lucky I knew I couldn't beat him by myself yet. Maybe if Laura had been in the mood, we could have made up over teaming up to stomp a mudhole in her DNA source? Ah, missed opportunities.