“You’re gonna what, chere?” Gambit asked, his voice cracking under the strain. He was awoken in his room late in the night by uninvited and unexpected visitor. He was sitting up in his bed, his blanket wrapped around his naked torso. His usually unruly hair was sticking to one side due to Gambit sleeping on it wrong.

“Ah’m gonna have muh powers taken away,” she repeated softly. Her eyes were cast downwards, as if she could not look Gambit straight in the face.

Gambit threw off the sheets and jumped to his feet. He was clad only in his boxers which were decorated with little red hearts. Rogue let out a short giggle before managing to to reassert control over herself. He looked down, to see what was so funny and noticed that he was wearing his most embarresing undergarments. A slight smile formed on his lips. He wiped it off, deeming that it was inapproaite for the moment.

Gambit quickly walked over to Rogue and wrapped his arms around her, being carefully not to touch any part of her exposed flesh. For Rogue was both blessed and cursed as a mutant. She was given flight, invulnerability and enhanced strength, but she could never directly touch anyone.

She gently pushed him back a few steps away from her.

“Look, you crazy Cajun, Ah’m doing this for you,” she paused and looked away. “For us.” Tears were forming at the corners of her eyes, and Gambit wished that he could wipe them away for her.

“Look, Gamit love you just the way you are, chere. No need to go changing now.” He smiled, hoping to convince her that he didn’t want her to do it. But, a part of him did. A part of him wanted to hold her all night and to make love to her. A part of him wanted to be able to share a kiss with the person that he loves without fear of going into a coma or worse.

“Ah can’t deny myself any longer, Remy. Ah can’t deny what I want.”

“What is it you want? Just tell me and I’ll make it happen.” Gambit flashed his smile again, hoping to buy her happiness with something. She looked away in embaressement then returned to staring him in the eyes.

“Ah want you,” she said simply.

“You already got me, chere. Body and soul, you know dat.”

“I want to hold you, Remy,” she said breathlessly and without hope. Remy bunched his brow together in thought.

“Give Gambit one more day, chere. One day for me to come up with a plan so you don’t have to do dis.” She sighed and looked off.

“Okay.”

“Thank you, Rogue.” He blew her a kiss, and she blew him one. As she left the room, he started thinking about what he could do or who he could turn to. He quickly got dressed, ran to the window, leapt out of his second story room, and landed safely on the ground.

Stephen arrived at Audra’s apartment around nine o’clock at night. By ten o’clock they were done with dinner. Fifteen minutes later, they were naked.

Whitney was getting nervous; her period was two days late. She had started seeing a guy only a few short weeks ago, even her friends didn’t know his name. She had talked to him on the phone a few times for a couple of hours each time, and she felt as if she knew him well, almost intimatly. When they first met a week and a half ago, they had sex almost immeaditly. It had started out as massaging, but soon turned more serious.

She hadn’t heard from him since, and she was wondering when her period was going to start. It was usually like clockwork, and this little delay was becoming more and more frightening. She was so scared that she finally went to the drugstore and bought a home pregnancy test.

She filled it and sat waiting in her bathroom. Blue meaning pregnant, clear meaning not. She sat there, staring at the tube, praying for clear. She knew it took a few minutes for it to turn on way or another, but she just sat there staring and waiting. Staring, waiting, and praying.

She-Hulk was in a bad mood. A very bad mood. In fact, if you asked her, she’d tell you that she was downright pissed off. She had just gotten out of a psychological examination where she was called a plethora of bad names and general insulted.

The first place she went to was a bar. She was chugging back beer after beer, hoping to get so royally drunk that she couldn’t even remember her own name, let alone the insults made to her.

“A girl could drown in all the beer you’ve been drinkin’,” a gruff voice said from behind her. She-Hulk turned around to see who was bitching at her now. She half-expected to see that Doctor Katzenburger had followered to the bar just so to make her feel worse.

Instead, it was the face of a friend. It was Logan, better known across the world as the fearsome Wolverine. Only now, he looked more drunk than ferocious. He was wearing a brown cowboy hat, a white T-shirt which hung loosly on his well built frame, and comfortable looking jeans.

“Logan,” She-Hulk said with a slight drunken slur on the words, “pull up a chair and sit down. I’ll buy you a drink.” Logan did as he was asked and a waitress walked over to them. She-Hulk looked up at the waitress then over at Logan. She held up two fingers.

“Two pitchers, please.” The waitress looked at them, then went off to fetch She-Hulk’s order.

“What’cha doin’ here?”

“Just waitin’ for you, handsome.” She winked at Logan, who smiled at the compliment.

“Naw, I ain’t handsome. I got one of the most homely mugs that you’re likely to see. Besides, I don’t think you were really waitin’ for me.”

She-Hulk leans over and kissed him. She ran her fingers through his thick black hair. She broke off their kiss.

“I was.”

“I can’t take advantage of a drunk,” Logan responded.

“I have an advanced healing factor, I’ve been sober for about thirty seconds. And besides, I’ve heard that you’re the best there is at what you do.”

“That’s right. Although, what I do ain’t very nice,” Logan said, a wicked smile forming on lips.

“That’s what I was hoping.”

Ultraman was still happy, even though his date had ended a long time ago. He could still feel her lips pressed gently against his. He made a mental note that he would have to thank Superman for introducing the two of them.

It all happened after he returned from a mission with Superman, when Superman decided to invite Ultraman up to the JLA Watchtower to meet his friends and teammates, the JLA. Ultraman was surprised at how many members of the JLA there were currently. They seemed to be off all shapes and sizes.

“This is Aquaman,” Superman introduced. The man had long blonde hair and a thick beard. His left hand had been replaced with harpoon. Aquaman seemed to be a pretty dark and gritty man.

“This is Batman,” Superman introduced. He appeared to be even more dark and gritty than Aquaman. He was dressed in all black except for a small yellow symbol on his chest. His eyes were whtie slits that gave off no emotion.

“This is Steel,” Superman introduced. Steel appeared at first glace to be a robot. He was large, clunky, and covered in metal. When you looked closer you could see that it was actually a large metal suit that a man wore.

“This is the Flash,” Superman introduced. The Flash seemed to be vibrating at a superspeed. It was hard to get a good look at him. All there was to him were streaks of red.

“This is Plasticman,” Superman introduced. Like Jim Carrey on acid. Plasticman struck Ultraman as a wax figure given life and a bad sense of humor.

“And this is the Green Lantern,” Superman introduced. Green Lantern looked younger than Ultraman had pictured him. He seemed to be not that much older than twenty. That was when Ultraman remembered that there was a new Green Lantern, one who wasn’t Hal Jordan.

A familar humming sound made Ultraman turn around. He recognized that the teleporter was warming up. After a short burst of light, Ultraman saw the most beauiful woman ever standing in the teleporter, Wonder Woman.

“And, this is Wonder Woman.”

“Hello,” she responded. Her voice was calm yet displayed an underlying strength about it.

“Hell... hell... hello,” Ultraman finally managed to squeek out. “How... how... ow... how are you?”

“Good,” she replied firmly.

“That’s nice. Good is nice. It’s nice to be good isn’t?”

“Yes,” she replied laughing, “I suppose it is.”

Ultraman cursed himself under his breath for being such an inane idiot in front of the woman of his dreams.

The rest of the day, he was shown around the Watchtower and made better acquanitances with the JLA. During his trip, when he and Superman were alone, Ultraman asked about Wonder Woman. Superman gave Ultraman the rundown on her creation and her duty to help the Earth. How she had fought valiently for the good of everyone.

Later on, while the two were walking they came across Wonder Woman.

“May I have a moment alone with Wonder Woman?” Ultraman asked. Superman smiled and nodded before sneaking off.

“Ah, Wonder Woman?” Ultraman asked. “I was kinda hoping that maybe you weren’t doing anything that we could do something together. Not that it means anything. I was just wondering if you weren’t doing anything, ‘cause it looks like you’re not doing anything. Not that it looks like you’re a slacker, or anything. I mean, you might be doing something, I don’t know. It just looks like you’re unbusy and available. Not that you look like you’re hunting for someone. I am just saying that if you were available I would like to take you out to eat. Or something like that.”

Wonder Woman smiled, then covered her face with her hand. “I’d love to,” she replied.

“Really? Great! Where would you like to go?”

The two ate on the JLA Watchtower. The date went well, and before Ultraman teleported off, Wonder Woman gave him a kiss that he’ll always remember. And a meeting to date the next night.

It wasn’t until a few hours after She-Hulk and Wolverine started being intimate, that Wolverine realized how long two people with healing factors could go on. Wolverine only had a few moments to think of this before She-Hulk pulled him closer for some more lovin’.

Gambit stood outside of Hank McCoy’s lab for a few minutes before Hank knew he was there.

“Please, Gambit, feel free to enter at your convience,” Hank stated. “After all, me casa es su casa.”

Gambit entered the labratory and was surprised to see that Hank had a large circular table with twelve chairs around it. Each chair had a huge stack of papers on the table in front of it.

“You got a meeting planned?” Gambit asked, also the curious one.

“Oh, surely you jest. Have you not heard what I’ve been planning with Charles and Moira? I thought for sure everyone in the mansion had heard me going on and on about it. Well, it appears that I was mistaken.

“I’ve invited all the most intellgent people who know something about the Legacy Virus to a meeting where we will brainstorm to our scientific hearts’ content. But, enough about me, what can I do for you?”

“I need your help with Rogue,” Gambit said after a moment’s pause.

“Ah, have you and the fair Southern belle come across additional adversity?” Beast asked, his brow furrowed with concern.

“No, nothing additional about it.” Gambit paused. “I need to be able to touch her. If I don’t find a way soon, she says she’s gonna leave da team.”

“Oh, my stars and garters.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, let me bring up our good Rogue’s medical file and discover what we can ascertain.”

Hank’s fingers flew over his computer terminal as long strings of information flows over the screen. His eyes squint as he begins to read the text on the screen. He outstretches his right leg, and with his foot grabbed his glassed and return them to his lap. Where then picked them up and placed them on. Again he started typing.

“Let’s see here, Mr. LeBeau. We have all of my medical check ups as well as psychological profiles done by the Professor.” Hank’s fingers suddenly stopped typing. “I’m afraid I’ve hit a dead end.”

“Can’t you compare notes or something?” Gambit asked. “See how long it takes for her to mimic someone? Can’t you do anything?”

“Eureka!” Hank shouted as he began typing with a new ferocity. “That’s exactly it, Gambit! I do believe that you have stumbled upon something!”

Hank’s fingers became blurry they moved so fast as he told the computer to check and doublecheck his hypothesis.

“There have been times when Rogue’s absorbing powers have worked better than others, correct?”

“I guess,” Gambit said uncertainly.

“Yet, we have never ventured a guess as to why this is. We have only taken it as a random choice of fate, but that’s not so! Don’t you see?” Beast shouted.

“No,” Gambit responded quite honestly.

“Okay, let me try another approach. She has a mutant ability, right?”

“Right.”

“You have one too, right?”

“Right.”

“Is your mutant ability always ‘on’? Do you charge up everything that you touch?”

“No, of course, not.”

“That’s because you know how to turn yours ‘off’! Rogue has always assumed that her powers were ‘on’ all the time and has thus never tried to overcome them! She could touch you just as easily as the next person could.”

“Are you sure?”

“My computer gives me a ninety percent possibility.”

Gambit ran out of McCoy’s lab, who after he was alone, returned to gather material for tomorrow’s meeting.

Ultraman, who was wearing his only suit and a tie, never thought that he would be dating Wonder Woman. She was wearing a beautiful black dress which exposed her Olympian figure.

The waitor, a snotty Frenchman (as if there was any other kind of French waitors) seated them and took their order before scurrying off.

“Thank you for inviting me to an such an expensive resteraunt,” Wonder Woman said.

“Thank you for saying yes.”

“It was my pleasure.”

They ate their meal, which came to them in such large portions that it could have feed an entire third-world country. But, despite the mass quantites that were served, both of them ate their entire meal.

“What’s your real name?” Wonder Woman asked half way through dinner.

“What do you mean, Diana?”

“Well, I know you’re real name isn’t Ultraman. What is the name of your secret identity?”

“Well, I don’t have a secret identity; well, not like Clark, anyway.”

“You know of Clark’s secret?”

“Yeah, accidently though. Anyway, I am Ultraman. It’s what I do and what I want to be.”

“But, what is your not-secret identity’s name?”

“Ultraman.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Ultraman pulled out his wallet and handed his driver’s liscene to Diana. Sure enough, his name was registered as Ultraman.

“I was born Rory Burck, but I figured that if I was going to be a super-hero, I didn’t want to hide myself. So I legally changed my name. You can call me Rory, if you want though.”

“I think I would like that very much,” she paused before adding, “Rory.”

Rogue and Gambit met in Gambit’s room. Rogue had decided to leave and find a way for her powers to be removed.

“Kiss me, Rogue, before you leave,” Gambit asked quietly.

“That ain’t funny, Remy.” Rogue replied.

“No, chere, it ain’t a joke. Do you trust me?”

“With all muh heart.”

“Then kiss me, and know that nothing bad will happen.”

They kissed. Rogue found herself alive with a happiness that she couldn’t belive. She was kissing the man she loved. She broke off their kiss.

“How did you know I could do that without hurting you?”

“Beast said there was a ninety percent chance that you could turn you powers off.”

“What ‘bout that last ten percent? Why did you risk yourself?”

“Because you’re worth the risk.”

“You ever try to stop charming people?” Rogue asked with a sly smile.

“Well, now you know one way to shut me up.”

And indeed, she did.