He could feel the burn of his mutation inside of his abused shoulders. Regenerative process was unfinished, working on feverish pace, trying to repair the damage he had taken, first from Mystique posing as him, then from his own claws and last but not least from when Creed had been smacking him around.
Unfinished. He’d fall to pieces if he let her borrow from him now. He gazed his surroundings, trying to find a way out from this, but there was none. Nobody else to take care of the mess. Nobody else to bring back the girl from the darkness the machine had pulled her in. The X-Men, Xavier’s divine do-gooders were useless for him now. None of them had the power to rouse Rogue. None of them could help him bring her back.
“Fuck… You’d better appreciate this, kid…” He muttered, cutting the strings that tied her to the machine, pulling her hands off from the pedals, wincing when the sound of tearing skin reached his ears, and scent of burnt flesh assaulted his sinuses.
He caught her in his arms before she fell. Fragile shell, cold corpse, but he could tell there was a small spark of life inside of her left. It would just need fuel and it would start burning as bright as it had been before. He tore off the glove from his left hand. Placed his bare palm against her cold cheek, closing his eyes, bracing for the greedy pull of her mutation. Unconscious she was unable to control it. She’d take everything.
Seconds ticked by. Nothing was happening. Absolutely nothing. He opened his eyes to make sure that he was actually touching her. His palm was covering the half of her face, thumb resting over her lips, and nothing was happening.
“Don’t you dare to die on me… Come on, kid. Who else is going to keep The Company off from my tracks?” He whispered, combing back thick, white streak of hair from her forehead.
He gasped and pulled her limp body against his, cradling the back of her head with his palm. She had gone through the wringer, slain the best The Company had to send after her. She had kept his ass safe from Creed. She had given him her trust and love. He wasn’t going to let Magneto and his infernal machine take her away from him. He fumbled with the zipper of his jacket, opening it, shivering slightly when cold air whirled over his heated flesh, then pressed the side of her face against his bare chest, hoping against hope that her mutation would need just more contact to trigger.
He was still sitting there, holding the struggling girl against his heart, sitting in a growing puddle of his own blood that flowed from the numerous re-opened cuts, only barely conscious when the X-Men finally reached them. They had to pry off his hands forcibly before Rogue’s mutation drained him completely.
Return to consciousness was strange mixture of warmth and coldness. He could feel something skimming over his side, tickling. When he opened his eyes he met the greenest eyes he had ever seen, framed with red hair. The doctor. Jean. Jeannie. She was peeling off bandages from him, strictly professional and distant look on her face.
“That was a brave thing to do,” she said. For a moment he couldn’t bring himself to remember what exactly had happened. Then everything rushed back.
“Did it work? Is she okay?” He asked. He had a vague memory of Marie struggling and screaming.
“She’s fine. She absorbed some of your personal traits for a while, but other than that… She’s fine.” Somehow it sounded like that wasn’t everything Jean wanted to say. She was holding back.
“I think… I think she’s little taken with you,” she finally whispered, throwing a worried glance towards the door of the infirmary.
“Professor Xavier had to order her to get some rest. You have been out nearly a week, and she has stayed nearly as long down here.” Somehow the good doctor made it sound like it was somehow wrong and filthy, and it took him a moment to realize why.
“Well, you can tell her that my heart belongs to somebody else…” He huffed quickly, sitting up and reaching for his clothes somebody had folded neatly on to a chair next to his bed.
Sixteen. She was supposed to be sixteen. He’d have to find her and talk with her before Jean got the chance to do so. To clear things up.
She was sitting in a common room with a boy. The boy had his arm slung over her shoulder and they were chatting quite animatedly. He stopped, hand resting on the doorjamb, peering through the window on the door.
She looked like she was having a good time. She was laughing. Even holding hands with the boy. Of course with gloves on. Couldn’t forget those. Maybe the boy was leaning too close for his liking. Maybe their intertwined fingers didn’t radiate purity and everything platonic. Maybe he felt a stab of jealousy slicing through his chest. Maybe. But he saw something he hadn’t thought was even possible.
The youth and energy The Company had managed to strip from her was slowly returning.
He turned on his heels, trying not to think too hard what he was about to do. Walked stiffly towards the professor’s office. Then remembered seeing him going towards Cerebro when he had left the infirmary, and went to the elevator instead.
“I was hoping we could persuade you to join to our rank,” professor spoke slowly, clearly selecting every word carefully.
“Yeah… Well… I have some unfinished business to take care of. Maybe when it’s over…”
“What about Rogue?” Professor asked sharply. Logan’s brows knit together in confusion.
“What about her?” He asked. Professor Xavier turned his gaze towards the Cerebro’s controls, like he suddenly found them utterly fascinating. Then he cleared his throat.
“I am aware of the fact that your… Your relationship with her is rather… Unorthodox. I do not encourage it, but I’m also not in the position to judge. Have you considered how your departure will affect her?” He asked.
“Last time I saw her she was joined from hip with one of your students. Good for her,” Logan grunted, craving for cigar skyrocketing. Something, anything to plug his mouth before he let out something he shouldn’t.
“She spent the previous week in vigil at your bedside. I ordered her to get some rest and to join to her friends for a while when it started to look like you’d make it through. I wouldn’t make any hasty conclusions based on her current behavior,” professor spoke with calm voice.
“Jesus Christ. I’m trying to do the right thing in here. It’s hard enough to leave her as it is, you don’t have to make it impossible!” Logan huffed. Professor Xavier pinched the bridge of his nose, scrunching his eyes shut, hiding rather impressive grimace behind his palm before turning to look at him again, clearly disgusted at himself and what he was going to say next.
“I really hope that you stayed. Be it with Rogue or without her. We could use your skills and knowledge.”
“Professor knows.” He raised his head from the sound of her voice. He had been puffing a cigar, staring at the toes of his boots and frayed patch of carpet between them for God knows how long, trying to decide what to do. Long enough to fill the small ashtray lying on a table beside him. Long enough for the sun to escape from his window to the other side of the building. Long enough for the frayed patch to blur from edges because he had forgotten to blink.
“He knows that we have been fucking. What else does he know?” He asked with hoarse voice. Marie pulled a chair in front of him and sat down.
“I was asleep. Didn’t hear him get in. Next thing I knew he was sitting right behind me, his hands on both sides of my head, nearly touching me. I don’t think he knows that much about me, my mind had been mostly on you for the last days. He probably knows about The Company and your involvement with them, but as far as he’s concerned, I’m just a sixteen year old runaway from Mississippi.”
“He wants me to stay. Offered you as a trade-off for my time and skills,” he said, watching the blush creeping up to Marie’s cheeks. Not from embarrassment. Out of anger. She was positively pissed off.
“Who the hell does he think he is? I’m not a whore! I’m not a thing to be used for bargaining! I’ll fucking drain the bastard!” She fumed, pacing back and forth, rickety chair turned over from her abrupt move to stand up.
“I have tried! I swear, Logan that I have tried! I have done everything right, by the book! They all think of me as Marie! Poor little Marie, incapable of physical contact, thrown out from her family, oh, woe is me! And I’m sick of it! And this is how Xavier repays my efforts?”
“Excuse me?”
“Jesus, Logan… I thought you were smarter than this….” She muttered, stopping to stare at him. He stubbed the cigar to the ashtray and narrowed his eyes.
“You looked happy. I thought you liked it here. I was going to… I was going to leave. Let you live a little. Have the life you never had,” he said.
“Leave me here and I swear I’ll hunt you down and drain you… Slowly. I know how to do that so that it feels like it’s taking forever…” She hissed.
“You’re not happy here?” He asked perplexed.
“I have to wrap myself up like a freaking mummy! People are afraid of me! I have to pretend that I’m just some love-struck bimbo admiring her hero instead of fucking you to the carpet like I wanted to do from the minute I realized what you did for me at The Liberty! Do the math!”
She plopped on her back on his bed, letting out an enormous sigh. He grabbed yet another cigar and lit it.
“You’re not happy. Shit. And I was beginning to think that we could stick around for a while. Wait, hear me out,” he added quickly when she threw a murderous glare towards him.
“I’m not completely convinced that Creed was the only schmuck sent after me. What if there’s more? Xavier could cover our asses. And it’s not all bad in here. Considering that he sounded willing to let us move in together…”
“More people after us? We can deal with them, Logan. We don’t need Xavier…”
“I’m not fucking immortal, Marie! If I go down out there, you have nobody. Absolutely nobody to turn to. At least in here you’d have people who trust you. People who you can trust if something happens to me.”
“Trust? You’re telling me I should trust to a man who’s ready to pimp me out for some extra muscle?” She snarked sitting up.
“Come on, kid… You make it sound like…”
“Fuck you, Wolverine! Stay if you like. I’m leaving… Oh, what the hell am I talking about? Of course you’re staying! Jean already told me how your heart belongs to her!” She growled, jumping down from the bed and walking towards the door. She reached for the doorknob, turned it and opened the door right before Logan’s palm landed flat on the wooden surface, slamming it shut again. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around, grasping a firm hold from the front of her shirt and slamming her against the door.
“Logan…”
“Oh, it’s Logan now, is it?” He snarled, not knowing if he should kiss her or turn her over his knee and give her a proper spanking. His claws were itching just under the surface, stretching the thin layer of sensitive skin between his knuckles.
“Logan, I…”
“Shut up, bitch.”
“But…”
“You know, Marie, I rather like it in here. We have people around us. The best alarm system there is, lots of curious muties milling all around the campus. Best possible defense and shield. I don’t know if you have noticed, but getting shot at and getting beaten hurts. Hurts a lot. I get off from pain, but even I’m not twisted enough to enjoy it when I’m the one hurting. From what I have seen, life here in general would be pretty easy and comfortable. Magneto’s in jail, and this place is a school. The X-Team? Primarily teachers. Teachers, Marie. Not too many chances of them strapping on leathers and going in to battle. Not too many chances of either of us getting hurt.”
“Logan, I…”
“Shut up.”
“But…” His lips landing on hers cut her further attempts to speak.
He raised his head and covered her mouth with his palm, bracing her in place against the door with his hips and tearing in to their clothes with his free hand. She was struggling frantically, biting his palm and scratching him. All the while the scent of her arousal was thickening, until air was thick as syrup and if he had tried he could have probably taken bites out of it. Acrid tang of her fear only sweetened the mixture when he leaned closer to look in to her eyes. Released her lips from under his palm and grabbed her hair instead, twining his fingers in to thick brown and white tresses.
“I’m not going to lie to you… I’d love to fuck Jean. But had it been her instead of you strapped in to that machine… I wouldn’t have bothered to strap on the leather,” he snarled, slamming his cock in to her slick and grasping sheath.
“We’re staying. For now. We need a home base if we’re going after those fuckers from The Company.” He spoke with quiet but strong voice, leaning against the windowsill, winding down from their earlier tryst. Marie was still standing at the door, trying to arrange her clothes and smooth down her ruffled hair.
“Fine. I’ll go and tell the professor that I’m moving in with you,” she said.
“No. You’re bunking in the dormitory,” he said. For a moment she stared at him her mouth gaping open.
“What? Why?”
“You don’t want your friends to think of you as a some sort of pervert, bunking with an old man. And…”
“I don’t fucking care what they think!”
“And I don’t want to go sleeping at night worrying if you’re going to end up skewered because you sneezed at the wrong moment.”
“Oh… What about… Can you sleep in here? With all the ruckus coming from everywhere around you?” She asked.
“I’ll ask professor to get this room soundproofed. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Okay…” She whispered, lowering her head and turning to leave.
“Hey,” he called after her. She turned to look at him.
“This doesn’t mean that I’d be happy from they way you keep ogling that little prick.”
“Who, Bobby? So it’s okay for you to bag Jean, but I can’t have some fun? Who died and made you God?” She hissed, anger flaring and burning in her eyes.
“I’m not going to fuck Jean. You’re not going to fuck Bobby.”
“Really?”
“Have you forgotten your little skin problem? You can’t fuck anybody but me. Wouldn’t be fair from me to screw with Jean now, would it. If you get an itch, come to me and we’ll scratch it together.”
“But I thought you said…”
“We don’t have to sleep together to sleep together.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
One more to go after this one.