"Hey," Marie whispered quietly, she didn't want to surprise him by sneaking up on him. It was a small ritual they always did even though both knew he could sense her coming.
He swore under his breathe and kept his attention on the wrecked bike in front of him. Hopefully if he ignored her long enough she’d leave. So he left his back to her and kept removing the hanging pieces of plastic that hadn’t ripped off the bike when he crashed.
“Logan, I think we need to talk.” Her footsteps moved closer to him causing him to tightly clench the wrench in his hand.
“I don’t,” his voice was low and gravelly, usually the tone scared her away since evidently ignoring her wasn’t going to work.
Her sigh almost echoed throughout the garage and he could see her out of the corner of her eye jumping up on the hood of one of the cars, her silent signal that she was not going anywhere. “You haven’t been around much these last couple of days,” she informed him, as if he had been completely oblivious to the fact.
“I wouldn’t be here now if the damn bike hadn’t crashed.”
“Looks pretty bad,” she nodded, not wanting to upset him up too much. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
She nodded again and they sat in silence while she watched him continue to tinker with the bike. He was completely cover in dirt and grim with a thick oil overcoat and looked absolutely fabulous to her. With each turn of his wrench the muscles in his forearm seemed to dance under his skin and his shoulders threaten to rip out of the thin cotton covering them. Ricochet had told them that her parents meet on the road and traveled around for a while and then had her. It had only been a few years later that they meet the X-Men and decided to settle down. The other Rogue had managed to do what she couldn’t, snag the Wolverine. Marie wondered if Sabretooth hadn’t attacked and they just kept driving if she’d gotten hers too.
“Are you never going to talk to me again now?” She finally decided he had silently fumed long enough.
“Don’t be stupid. We talked yesterday.”
“‘Get me a beer, kid’ doesn’t count as talking.”
He turned his head to glare at her under his thick eyebrows but the returned back to machine. More than anything he wanted to leave. To just fucking drive away and be done with all this shit but he promised Storm he wouldn’t.
Marie watched him; watched his face, looking for any sign that he was cracking. She just wanted any indication that he was going to stop ignoring her. She waited. She waited till the bike was stripped, till all the oil was drained out, till bent back exhaust pipes had been removed, then she finally snapped.
“God damnit, Logan, what is it that pisses you off so much? What is it?! Is it because she’s a girl and not some future alpha male? Is it because she doesn’t look enough like you, huh? That her hair doesn’t spike up on the sides? Or maybe its not about her. Maybe its that your pissed that you’re an X-Men there too. And you’ve made it perfectly clear how much you resent being one here. Or is it because you got stuck with me? I know, it’s because Scott *still* fucking had Jean. God, Logan.”
She couldn’t help the small strangled chuckle that escaped her. Even with her whole rant he still hadn’t bothered to so much as look at her. She gave him a few seconds to react, to say anything, but he didn’t move, just sat squatting on the floor, wrench in hand.
“Damnit,” she decided to keep going, “You should see Peter with Chava. They’re *always* together. I’ve never seen him this outgoing before. They speak Russian together and he drives her and Jubes anywhere they wanna go and.. and... damnit Logan!” She stopped to wipe her eyes, who were bluntly disobeying her and tearing up. “Don’t you think Ricochet sees it, them together? How the hell do you think that makes her feel? I know she’s not your daughter to you. But you’re her father to her. She knows your face, she grew up with YOUR face. And all you’ve done is been a first class selfish asshole to all of us!”
“You’re right!” he screamed, throwing the wrench down in the tool box. Within one blink he was up and in her face, cold furry shining through his hazel eyes. “She’s NOT my fucking kid! Why the fuck should I have to pay for the mistake of some fuck-off version of me who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants with a god damn kid he fucking picked up? Huh? And don’t give me this holier than thou motherly crap. The only reason you give a shit about her is because you can fucking touch her. Think about that before you go calling someone else a selfish ass!”
She starred at his face in completely shock. His chest was heaving from being out of breathe and he was so close she could feel the heat from his body, not to mention his anger. So many things went running through her head. She wanted to yell at him some more, she wanted to tell him to just fuck-off if that’s how he felt, she wanted to cry, and she wanted to run. But all she could get out was a weak, “I’m not a kid.”
His eyebrow shot up on his forehead at her remark. It didn’t matter than they were in the mist of all this insanity, in the end they always went back to the same tired argument, “Yes you are.”
She sighed and shook her head. “I’m not. And you’re right.”
“How can I be both, darlin’?”
“You’re not right about me being a kid, I’m 25 for goodness sake, but you’re right about it not being your fault that she’s here. But its not HER fault either,” she went with a different tactic.
She jumped slightly when he all but fell forward leaning all his weight on one arm he put right beside her head against the car. He ran his other hand through his hair and she knew that was his small sign of defeat and she almost giggled. Almost. Instead she settled for laying a hand on his shoulder and gently kneading it.
“I’m not Peter,” he said out of the blue, but she seemed to understand his sentiment.
“No, you’re not.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I just felt like beating the characters up a little bit. And everyone loves a good "we need to talk..." :D