Chapter Text
Doing the end-of-year paperwork was mind numbing for Ororo, and so she mused.
Forge was an interesting case of a man who was fully technical about his spirituality, and highly spiritual about his technological inventions. When possessed and crouched over his next big innovation, huffing and puffing, Forge looked nothing short of possessed. On the other hand, his explorations of the shadow world, his use of astral projections was always done with mechanical precision. In the thick of the battle, when he needed to counteract a telepath or the Shadow King himself, his face turned void of any emotion.
A strange man, Daniel Lone Eagle, whose chosen name was Forge. Ororo mused at the man of her past, the man who took her power, the man who completely abandoned his native roots and his mutant heritage.
“All is lost for us, we are doomed,” Forge used to explain to Ororo after she had posed a question on why his political stance was so weak. Who were ‘ us’ Ororo did not know; did Forge refer to the end of Cheyenne Indians, mutants, or humankind as a whole?
Ororo signed the paper, releasing Forge from the X-Men, once and for all. His decision.
Done with her work for the year, she finally pushed all the documents aside; a few last tasks were a duty for her as a faculty staff to close the calendar year. All the children were already home for the holidays. The hallways were mostly empty, except for an occasional rogue teenager practicing speedrunning with his supersonic speed.
She stood up and walked to the window. Watching the hasty flurries fall onto the grounds of the school’s empty soccer field, Ororo took a deep sigh to welcome the first snow. It was late December, a bit too late for the first snowflakes to make their final appearance. The students used to joke that the apocalypse must have been nearing – which put Scott Summers’ gears into overdrive – yet nobody dared to make any direct comments to Ororo herself. During the exam season, not a single soul dared to test her wrath.
The memories of Logan’s lone wolf cabin in Quebec flooded her memories. That place had no problem being fully covered with three feet of thick, pristine snow. Ororo wondered whether Logan, who had stayed at his place for a few extra days to “wrap up some business”, would return before Christmas. She was not religious, nor did he care for it, but the collective choreography of the Christian celebration in Westchester was bound to give a zest of loneliness for Ororo’s night on the Eve.
It was the night of Christmas Eve, 11 in the night, when Ororo heard the heavy wheels of a pickup truck roll into the garage of the mansion.
His car. This late. A debilitating drive on a dark icy road. 8 hours, no less.
She practically flew down two flights of stairs to see him stand right there, leaning at the door of his car. The motor was still on, and so were the beam lights. There was no luggage in sight.
As soon as they met each other’s eyes, her heart stopped. She smiled, looking for the sensitivities in his facial expression. He did not flinch, making a hungered assessment of her body up and down. She did it too. The sight of Logan reminded her of the primal tremble in her heart, which she lulled with a deep exhale as she stood at the doorframe.
Next, he opened his arms wide open, knowing how much she liked to plunge into his strong and warm embrace. Before submitting to his invitation, Ororo raised an eyebrow and challenged Logan:
“No luggage in sight. Are you leaving right away?”
“ We are leaving, darling.”
His words were firm but with a hint of joy. To her stupor and silence, he smirked and continued:
“Pack up, and let's go on an adventure. It is time we both graduate from this school.”