Thicker Than Blood

Chapter 9: Please Come Get Me

Notes:  Canucklehead Cowgirl and I noticed in the comics that sometimes Clint would be affected by power dampeners. But since he never gets targeted by Sentinels, we figured something ~NEW~ was going on...

The next morning, all was peaceful and quiet at Xaviers. The birds were singing in the early morning sun, the world was going on as it always did ... and no one seemed to be stressed out or worried overly much about anything. There was a fair bit of excitement, since K and Clint were supposed to meet up with the Xavier's crew for lunch; the two of them had been sorely missed by both staff and student body alike.

Jean was particularly excited, since she and Clint had an ongoing bet on whether Jubilee was going to ask Everett out. And Jean had promised no telepathic nudging, so Clint had been winning when he said they weren't getting together, but Jean was sure if she could get Clint to budge on the nudging and she could just tell Jubilee that Everett liked her aloud and not telepathically...

And of course, everyone was excited to play with Arrow too. Kitty and Piotr had taught him 'sit' and 'stay' in Russian — after Piotr taught Kitty how to say it first, of course. And they wanted to see if that had stuck even through the summer months.

The hours followed each other, as they always did ... and while everyone else was doing prep work, Logan was doing his best to destress by working on the blackbird. He'd already given his motorcycle a tune up, and he'd played pool with Kurt once he'd finished the bike ... so now it was more a matter of finding things to do to keep him busy while they all waited for K to roll up the driveway in Logan's Jeep — complete with a grinning kid and a slobbery, half-grown dog.

"Do you think they're just running late?" Jean asked at last, poking her head into the hangar.

"Prolly," Logan said, half distracted. "Kid probably stayed up half the night or better."

"You're right," Jean said, biting her lip. "I just... Rachel misses him too, you know. I can hear in her thoughts she's wondering where her friend is. We visited them at the tower recently and she adores him..."

"If you're that worried, you can always reach out to see where he is," Logan reasoned.

Jean bit her lip. "Maybe," she said. "I know he hates when I peek, though. And you're right. He's probably just still dragging his feet. I'm sorry. I just love to see them — and to see you with them. I can't wait for you to be a family. You know that."

"Jeannie ... "

"You know you're the second cutest family in Westchester," she said with a little crooked smirk.

"Ain't lookin' for cute, Red."

"Too bad. Looks good on you," she said, the smirk turning somehow more crooked.

"You could always try to see if you can reach her instead. I'm sure the mental groan wouldn't be anything at all," Logan teased.

"Oh, sure," Jean said, rolling her eyes. "Just let me know when they get here, would you? I'm going to go steal Rachel back from Scott. He's been spoiling her rotten all morning."

"I'll keep it in consideration," Logan replied easily as Jean headed out ... though several more hours passed before Logan seemed to realize that it really was getting later. But rather than raise the alarm unnecessarily, Logan hopped on his motorcycle and headed for the campsite he knew that K and Clint had picked out to camp at.

He wasn't expecting to see the Jeep there with no one around. And he absolutely wasn't expecting Arrow to come bounding out from behind the back tire — shaking and whining as he rushed Logan, looking for a friendly face.