AUTHOR'S NOTE: This takes place in the future, after "The Deal" has ended. Logan and Jean are married, with twins, Rose and James. They may be superheroes, but that doesn't mean they're not just like every other good old-fashioned American family…and with that comes a few special traditions…

FAMILY PORTRAIT

"Aw, Jeannie do I haveta?" Logan whined at me. I hated, absolutely hated when he used that tone of voice.

"Yes you do! We're not arguing about this any more! It's pointless!" I exclaimed, straightening his tie and then licking my finger and trying to smooth down his flyaway hair.

"Stoppit!" he growled at me, throwing me a mean look.

"I'm sorry, I don't know why your hair always looks like you just stuck your finger in an electrical socket Logan. Jeez."

"It's just wild an' can't be tamed. Unlike me, apparently. Jesus. I can't believe we're goin' to Sears. I'd rather pay a visit to Lady Deathstrike."

"Just suck it up and be a man about it already," I quipped.

"SHIELD is gonna be makin' fun a' me for decades," Logan lamented.

"No they won't!" I snapped. "I happen to know for a fact that Nick Fury has one of these photos hanging on his wall!"

"Yer kiddin' me!"

"Nope. Saw it myself! Hey, go check James' diaper before we leave, okay? I thought he might've been a little…pungent…a minute ago."

Logan walked over, picked the baby up from the crib in one hand and pulled back the diaper with the other hand to peek in. He made a face, tears coming to his eyes.

"Jesus fucking Christ Jeannie what are you feedin' these kids?"

"Don't swear around the babies Logan!" I scolded.

"Uuuugh!" Logan replied. "How the hell do ya turn breast milk inta THAT?"

"I mean it!" I said, using my warning tone. "They are not going to grow up talking like you! They're not!"

"Fine, fine," Logan muttered. "How the heck do ya turn milk inta that. Better Jeannie?"

"Mm hmm. I love you baby," I said, kissing him on the cheek. He looked at me like he wanted to slice me in half.

"Logan," I said, putting my arms around him and whispering seductively into his ear.

"I'll make it up to you later. I promise."

Logan looked over at me with interest in his eyes.

"Tonight?" he asked suspiciously.

"And tomorrow night," I said, grinning at him. He liked that. He kissed me. Then he kissed my neck. Then lifted a hand and squeezed my breast.

"Hey, no! No! Not right now!" I said, pulling away. "We're going to be late!"

When both the babies were in dry diapers and matching onesies I ran them out to the van and and buckled them in their car seats. Logan climbed into the passenger seat. When we'd bought the minivan he'd told me on no uncertain terms he was "never going to drive that sissy thing" and it was "for soccer moms and middle aged women." I told him fine, he may as well retire his driver's lisence because there was no way on planet earth the babies were going on a motorcycle.

That meant I was always the driver. I didn't mind.

By the time we arrived at the Sears parking lot Logan was definitely not in a better mood. If anything, it was worse. He lifted Rosie out of the car seat and into a snugli, all the while grumbling.

"I hate the damn mall. I mean the stupid mall," he said, glancing quickly at me. I rolled my eyes as he continued to complain. "Thank God we're only doin' this once," he continued muttering.

We got to the mall entrance, and just rounded the appliances isle when a boy of about thirteen ran up.

"Oh my god, are you Wolverine?" he asked.

Logan stared hard at the kid, and then sighed. "Yeah," he said.

"Can you sign my comic?" The boy asked excitedly.

"Sure," Logan said, reaching around the snugli on his chest to take the boy's pen, and I could tell he was secretly thinking of ways to get revenge on me for this later.

He signed the kid's comic, and the kid looked up said, "Ya know mister Wolverine…you…you look kinda different with a baby strapped on you. I never seen you drawn like that!"

"Get lost, kid!" Logan growled, and the kid turned tail and ran. Logan turned to me, face a half-scowl.

"We get to do it as many times as I want, an' I'm pickin' the positions."

I tried to hide my smile, "Fine by me Logan. You know Kitty's babysitting the rest of the night. You wanna punish me for this later?" I said, winking at him and biting my lip. "Fine by me!"

We approached the photography area, and man strolled up to greet us.

"Hi! I'm Milton, I'll be your Sears photographer today," the bespectacled man in a green argyle sweater announced.

"Hello," I said, cordially, shaking his hand, "I'm Jean and this is my husband Logan."

Milton stuck out his hand for Logan to shake and Logan looked away with a frown. Milton withdrew his hand.

"Well, Jean and Logan it is! Look at these ad-OR-able little ones here! What are their names?"

"This is James," I said, bouncing him on my hip, "And this is Rosie," I said, pointing to Logan's snugli. "They're fraternal twins," I explained.

"Beautiful! Just beautiful! Now, before we do the family portrait I need to know which backdrop you want. There's all the regular colors—white, red, blue, plus our special deluxe backgrounds that include Pine Forest and Oceanside."

"Hmm…Logan, which one do you think sounds good?" I asked, turning to my husband, who was staring intently at the ground with a building murderous rage in his eyes.

"Jean…I swear to God I am gonna to go into a berserker rage an' kill every man, woman, an' child in this store unless we can get the hell outta here in ten minutes."

"We'll take the blue background," I told Milton politely.

Milton carefully arranged us behind a wooden box, and told us to place the babies in front of us. James sat happily and cooed, but Rosie was not having any of it. She started bawling the minute she was out of the snugli.

"You an' me both darlin', I feel yer pain," Logan said to Rosie, jiggling her and trying to get her to calm down as her little face went bright red and she wailed like a siren.

"Give her your dog tags, Logan," I whispered. "She loves those!"

With a sigh, Logan undid the dog tags from around his neck and handed them to Rosie. In a second, she was playing happily, jingling them together.

"You're gonna be a little hellraiser one day just like your daddy, ain'tcha," Logan said proudly to his daughter, who was now chewing on his dog tags.

"Shh!" I hushed him. "You want to get this over with right? Let's do it."

"Oooookay folks," Milton said. "Jean, would you lean your chin on your palm? Good! Perfect. Perfect. Now Logan, I need you just to tilt your head up a little, okay? No, that's too far. Down. No, up just a hair."

"Make up yer freakin' mind!" Logan growled.

"LOGAN!" I said, "This man is just trying to do his job! Don't be rude!"

"An' I'm just tryin' to stop a mass homicide from happenin' Jean," Logan told me pointedly. I gave him a dirty look.

"Okay, I think we're ready!" I announced to Milton.

"Great! You folks look beautiful, beautiful! Picture perfect family, you must have good genes. Now, I'm gonna take it when I count to three, get ready! One, two…"

"RAAAUUUUGGGHHHH!!!" Logan cried, and with both claws out he leaped over the wooden divider.

For one terrible second I thought he was making good on his promise to murder everyone in Sears, but one second later I saw the real cause of commotion.

There was Victor Creed, who had emerged from a rack of women's underwear. I wasn't sure if that was a coincidence or not.

"RAAAAAA!!!" he roared as he met Logan head-on.

The two of them clashed with the sound of slabs of meat cracking together and rolled into the baby aise, knocking fischer-price toys and bottles and cans of formula everywhere.

Milton gave a loud and girlish shriek and leaped behind the counter as I quickly grabbed both Rosie and James and retreated to a safe distance.

"Gettin' a little family time with the frail, are ya runt?" Creed asked in a hiss. "How's yer little cubs gonna like to see you gutted here in public like this?"

"Creed, I gotta say, you picked a bad time to mess with me," Logan said, and a crazy grin spread along his face. "I been ready ta cut somebody up since the second I got into this place, an' that means it's gonna be yer funeral."

With that he grabbed a bottle of Johnston's baby powder off the shelf nearby and squeezed it in Sabretooth's face.

"GACK!" Sabretooth choked, covering his eyes from the white cloud.

"Lucky fer me, I've been buildin' up an immunity to this stuff," Logan said gleefully, and sank his claws in to Victor's spine.

"AUUUGGHHH!" Sabretooth bellowed, clawing blindly for Logan. But Logan wasn't finished.

"That's fer ruinin' my family potrait," he said, and then he stabbed Victor in the chest, bringing him to the ground.

"An' that's fer scarin' poor Milton. Guy's just tryin' to do his job, you know. Ain't he Jeannie?"

"Are you done honey?" I asked. It was difficult keeping my hands over the eyes of two squirming babies at once, even with TK in play.

"Almost," Logan called. Victor was lying on the floor in a mess of spilt formula, blood and baby powder, wheezing and cursing Logan's name. Logan jumped on his back, and with a sickening sound sunk his claws deep into Victor's skull.

I heard some terrified customers scream and run.

Panting, Logan left the bleeding body of Sabretooth in the baby aisle, and rolling up the now bloodstained sleeves of his dress shirt, walked over to me and took Rosie into his arms. She was giggling, like the whole thing had been hilarious. I was pretty sure James was asleep. He was sucking his thumb with his eyes closed.

"Feel better now Logan?" I asked him with mild exasperation.

"Absolutely," he said.

I saw a pair of glasses peek timidly over the counter as Milton peeked over.

"It's all right bub, you can come out now. I uh—sorry 'bout the picture," Logan called.

"Quite all right folks!" I heard faintly, before I heard a thud as the photographer fainted.

Logan shrugged. "Maybe he should find another line 'a work."

* * *

We were laid out on the bed together exhausted.

"Mmm, that was good," I said, spreading my hands out on Logan's chest and looking into his face. He had a very contended look.

"Hey, they say third time's a charm Jeannie," his voice rumbled, as buried his face in my hair, kissing my neck.

"Hey, it's only 5:30," I whispered to Logan. "We've still got two hours 'til we have to pick up the babies from Kitty."

"Hmmmm…" Logan said wickedly running his hand up my thigh. "What do ya wanna do?"

"You promised you'd take me out this week," I said, to Logan, squirming under his touch.

"Yeah," he admitted, stilling his hand. "Okay, yer right. Go get dressed baby, we're goin' to dinner."

"My choice?" I asked in glee.

"Yeah, just don't pick any o' those weird French place ya like. I never know what I'm orderin'."

"What about pizza and beer?"

"Good god darlin', I knew there was a reason I married you," Logan said to me.

I grinned and kissed him. He kissed me back, and then took me into his arms, pulling me close, urging my hips against his.

It was another half hour before we actually got out the door.

I climbed onto the back of Logan's motorcycle and wrapped my arms around his waist. As much as I complained about his scoot, Logan knew I got a thrill of riding around on him with it. And it had been a place of debauchery in the garage more than once for us.

"Hey Jeannie," he said looking back me. "I'm sorry about—ya know—about the family portrait. I didn't mean to ruin it for ya, I knew you were lookin' forward to it."

"That's okay," I said to him as his Harley roared to life and he tossed me my helmet. I straddled him, leaning against his back as he revved the engine. "It's all right Logan. There's always next year…"

END

POSTSCRIPT: I started writing this fic because of an article I read once that had some writer saying Wolverine could never settle down because he was a loner and it would change his character and make him less interesting, blah blah. I'm just here to say… wrong! Wrong wrong wrong! I know it's never going to happen in 616, but seriously—there is nothing more fun than writing Wolvie making his way through domestic trials and tribulations. Hope you enjoyed! ;)