The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Author's Chapter Notes:
There's gotta be something around here I can hide behind.... o.o
For being in the process of a do-or-die escape attempt she was feeling a very disturbing emotion. Countless escape attempts under her belt and nothing ever close to this. She was bored. Bored. Not even the time she tried hiding in the shower room waiting four hours for the guard change back in the labs had she been bored.
All the hallways looked the same. There were some doors. They never opened them. Her partner in crime walked ahead of her. For each new hallway he’d stop. Sniff. Take a left, or a right, or just kept walking straight. There was nothing for her to do; he had it all under control.
Nothing wasn’t quite true. Ever since the new alarm began sounding off over and over again through out the base she’d been contemplating it. It was a crisp, robotic female voice repeating, “Code 37. All personal evacuate.”
Sabretooth must have been causing some serious trouble. She and Wolverine loose together didn’t cause a Code 37, whatever that meant. It probably stood for ‘insane, homicidal mutant running around’. Or maybe it was Sabretooth’s personal alarm code? It could be a more general ‘get your ass out the place is going to hell’ too, she supposed.
At least Sabretooth wasn’t bored. A while ago she tried to spark up a conversation with her traveling companion but it didn’t take. He found answering her with nothing more than grunts and glares was more than acceptable so soon she gave up. But that had been a good six or seven turns and new hallways ago. The only person speaking since was the alarm lady.
“So.” The word popped out of her mouth without her brain’s consent. Wolverine’s head turned slightly towards her, just so she could make out the side of his face. His side burns were long and he had a good bit of dark stubble across his cheek. He must have shaved at least a couple of days ago, though. Her mind began wandering again. Did they give him a shaving kit or do it themselves? No, he had to do it. She couldn’t see the army dulling out muttonchops.
“What?” He snapped, jerking her mind back out of his facial hair.
“What?” She echoed. “Oh. Nothin’. Ah was jus’ wonderin’ how close we were?”
He turned back forward and shrugged. She sighed, that was about the answer she expected to get. He sniffed; they made a right turn-- another long hallway. The alarm lady kept talking. This was ridiculous.
“With ‘em evacuatin’ tha place they’ll probably be a lot of people outside. We’ll have ta be careful with that.” He grunted in response. “Funny, ain’t it? Now that we’re so close to getting’ out its safer in tha base than outta it.”
That got her a quiet growl.
“Ah’m jus’ makin’ a general observation, big guy. She gettin’ on ya nerve too?” She indicated towards the ceiling, though he probably couldn’t see it with his back to her.
But he turned his head again, this time looking straight at her. And nodded.
“Oh ha ha,” she huffed. A ghost of a smirk appeared on his face. They stopped at another hallway that cut across. He sniffed left, then right.
Then left again.
She arched an eyebrow, something she couldn’t ever remember doing before but had certainly seen it enough times. He sniffed right a second time.
“Problem?” She asked, crossing her arms over her chest. He ignored her, which she took as a yes. His face contorted in a fearsome glare at the two different directions. Then he turned right.
At first right looked like all the other rights they’d taken up to that point. And the lefts too for that matter. But the further they got she could make out something up ahead of them.
“Is that a door?” She asked quietly, as if she might scare it away.
He nodded. “Hanger.”
Her head jerked up to look at him. “Hanger?”
“Jet fuel. Oil. Fumes. Hanger,” He elaborated.
‘Exit’ was all she heard. “Awesome,” she grinned and looped her arm through his. He shot her a look so she let go with a laugh.
“Code 37. All personal evacuate’ continued its chant. For this one time she had every intention of following orders. With each step the door moved closer. She could make out the details on it. It was beautiful—heavy metal, a huge hinge on the top, big push bar in the middle. It was a door that screamed the outside was on the other side of it.
Suddenly as they were making their way happily down the hall the alarm stopped. She stopped as well and looked around for the reason why but they were seemingly still alone in the base. She heard a weird groan then, it didn’t sound anything like him but she turned back around towards Wolverine to look. He was bolting towards the door. Her feet were frozen in shock at the sight of the huge man running like a bull was chasing him. In a split second nothing around her was making any sense. Then she saw it.
The opening in the ceiling. The rapidly falling wall of metal bars.
She snapped out of her daze and took off running. Her bare feet pounded against the hard floor. Wolverine began looking so far away; the bars were coming down so quickly. There was no way they were going to make it.
He was close. Despite how hard she ran she was still practically miles away. She kept telling herself he could stop them. If he got there in time he was strong enough to stop them. Then he went down, tumbling over his feet onto the ground and she screamed. The wall of bars was going to crush him, she could just tell it. Her hear stopped in her chest even though her feet kept moving.
She was almost to him.
“Wolverine!” She called out. He didn’t get up. The bars kept falling. She tried to find a fifth gear to shift into but her legs could only move so fast. She gasped when he rolled. The metal bars slammed down onto the concrete floor, sending a thunderous boom all around her. Wolverine was jumping to his feet on the other side.
She didn’t stop. She didn’t slow down. She let her body colliding full force against the bars. They didn’t so much as shake. Tears freely flowed from her eyes as she slipped into hysteria. Sabretooth surged forward in her rapidly weakening mind making the pain meaningless to her as her body pounded against the unrelenting bars again and again.
Harder. If she could just hit them harder she could get through. She screamed out in agony when her tender shoulder hit squarely on one bar. Then she back up just far enough to do it again. All her strength went into each blow. The bars absorbed it nonchalantly and hit her back with it.
Vice grips around her upper arms prevented her from pulling back for another attack. She opened and focused her eyes to see Wolverine’s cold blue eyes boring down into her, his arms reaching through the bars and keeping her pinned against them with his strength. Pressure of his fingers digging into her skin forced Sabretooth away so that she was left with the all consuming pain. The familiar sight of him behind bars only made her cry harder. Except she was the only one on the wrong side.
With a heavy sigh and a choked sob she let her head fall forward and rest against the cool metal. Her hands came up to wrap around the bars to hold on as her world came crashing down all around her.
“Just go,” she mumbled, grinding her forehead against the metal and clenching her eyes shut. “Tha God damn door is right behind ya, sugah.”
His hands tightened painfully around her arms. She looked up at him but left the now warming metal against her cheeks. “What tha hell are ya waitin’ for? Direct orders? GO!”
Warm hands left her arms. Blue eyes gave way to a wide muscular back.
Her body and mind finally gave out at the sound of the door being pushed open. She collapsed onto her knees up against the metal bars by the time it closed.