The first time Logan walked back into her life she got a ginger hug, some small talk, and a few too many near-death experiences for her own comfort. She got her second kiss and a fourth man, and a fifth, in her head, the knowledge that she wasn't as terrified of the real Magneto as the one in her mind, and a black leather uniform that she didn't think she'd earned.
But for all that, it was the second time Logan walked back into her life that she got a lot more than she'd ever expected.
He stuck around for a month after Alkali Lake, and the funeral, and the burst of activity that left the mansion repaired and a fragile calm descending over everyone's nerves. He stuck around and he got restless and she missed him when he finally left, but she didn't worry.
She knew it wasn't for good. She knew enough to be certain that she was worth a better good-bye than a quick hug and a few light words about taking care of herself.
The first few weeks of his absence were interesting. She'd grown accustomed to her shifts in mood, the variations that depended on which personality was acting as a filter to her own. David had faded to the point of inconsequential and she'd learned to work around Magneto and Logan, not to indulge in the cynicism or aggression that sometimes gripped her.
She'd learned fastest of all how to shut Carol out entirely. She couldn't function, not with rage that intense.
But John and Bobby...they were different, tolerable, and if she noticed a certain theme to her dreams and idle thoughts, a fixation on touch and sex, it was easy to blame it on them, on the sudden double influence of teenage boys. She wondered what Bobby would think, if he knew he was more or less helping her dream about Logan.
It started to become a relief to wake up in a Logan mood, and to be able to think about him through the calmer sieve of his own experience and preferences.
It started to become a bigger relief to learn to be herself again. She was almost happy, when she stopped thinking about him so much and could actually think in terms of individuality. Almost grateful, when it felt like she was moving on.
And by the time he came back she thought she had. She was nineteen and she'd been through one boyfriend and then another, and she'd started college and killed a woman. She'd learned a few things along the way: the heavy scent of too much of her own blood, the sound of her own bones snapping, the feel of hovering twenty feet off the ground.
The focus necessary to touch for precious periods of time. Enough confidence to hug him like she meant it when he finally showed up again, and enough wisdom to understand everything being said in the way his hand slid across the small of her back. She drew back and watched him silently, every girlish fantasy surfacing in her memory, then turned away with a smile and a glimmer of a wink. "Professor Xavier will want to see you."
And she left him with the professor and went about her day, and at dinner she slipped into a seat across from him and caught him sweeping his eyes across her entire body. "Satisfied I'm all in one piece?" she murmured slyly as she spread a napkin across her lap.
"Far as I can see," he agreed. He offered her a basket of rolls and she took it, intentionally grazing her bare fingers across his as she did. He followed her hand with his gaze, startled curiosity flickering across his face, but he didn't say anything about it. "Xavier made it sound like you almost weren't."
She silently cursed Xavier and his meddling, a reaction that was as much her as it had ever been Magneto. She didn't want to get into that; she hadn't planned on telling Logan at all. She didn't want him to know about the three parallel gashes on her stomach – a gift from Mystique in a certain form – or the surgical pin in her shoulder, or the fact that her entire left arm ached when it rained. "I'm fine," she said quietly, looking down at her plate. "Do you see anything wrong with me?"
He was silent until she glanced back up at him, and then he shook his head and smiled, easy and amused but with an underlying edge. "Not one damn thing."
And he didn't press her on it over dinner, demonstrating a restraint that made her grateful, and he gave her his attention like she was entitled to it. He gave her jokes and tidbits of information about his travels, and he gave her plenty of opportunities to catch him watching her in a way that would have made her nervous when she was younger, however infatuated she had been.
He gave her the impression that something vital had changed, and a growing suspicion as to what all it entailed, and a determination to find out.
When dinner broke up he moved to gather his dishes, and she touched his hand for the second time. She lingered, her palm curled over his knuckles, to be sure he understood. "Let me," she said lightly. "We're meeting downstairs in a few minutes – I'll see you down there?"
He nodded, and as he stood up he turned his hand over, trailed his fingers across her palm. "Yeah," he told her quietly. "See you down there."
She wasn't sure but the tone of the meeting made it sound like Logan was planning to stick around. She didn't get a chance to ask him, though; she had reading to finish and then a quick bed-check she'd promised Scott she would do, and it was after midnight before she was able to knock lightly on Logan's door.
And when he let her in, all the practical questions she had flew from her mind, as did her resolve to explain everything that had happened. "I'm not crazy," she said instead of anything else, shutting the door behind her.
He raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. "Someone say you are?"
"Plenty of people, actually," she replied easily. "But I'd rather you didn't."
He started to frown at that but she cut him off, stepping in close and pressing a palm flat against his chest. She eased it up slowly, dipped just inside the collar of his shirt, skimmed her bare fingertips against his collarbone. "I'm not crazy," she repeated, but it was more a question that time.
He didn't answer, or return her steady gaze. His eyes dropped to her lips and he inhaled sharply, and then he grasped her by the shoulders and pushed her against the wall and sweet *jesus* but his mouth was hot and wet on hers, his tongue swiping gently across her lips before driving further in. She arched against him, and he hunched down enough to get his hands behind her knees and hoist her up in one quick, startling motion. He held her there like that, legs wrapped willingly enough around his waist, arms draped loosely over his shoulders because, face it, she was in no danger of falling.
He would never let her fall. She closed her eyes and let her head thump back against the wall, and his teeth on her throat, scraping slowly down, forced a low groan from between her lips. "Logan," she whispered. "Has to be fast, okay? I can't, not for very long, not this time –"
"Define fast," he muttered against her jaw, her ear, the curve of her shoulder; she couldn't keep track, the way his mouth was skidding over her skin and over-sensitizing all of it. Scratching stubble followed by swipes of his tongue and goosebumps trailing in his wake, and she shivered against him as a tendril of sensation shot down her spine.
"*Fast*," she gasped. "Slower later. Just, god, Logan, hurry. *Please*."
And that was apparently all it took; there was some awkward fumbling to get the right pieces of clothing out of the way and then Logan was pressing into her, easing her down with strong hands on her hips. "You okay?" he asked, and she had to smile at that, at how only he could sound so impatiently demanding and tenderly concerned all at once.
"Yeah," she breathed, and trembled as he pushed a hand under her bunched-up skirt, ran it along her leg from knee to hip before moving in and pressing his thumb against her. She hissed and tilted her hips up, leveraging her shoulders against the wall and gripping his shoulders for balance, and Logan wrapped his free arm securely around her waist. His thumb dragged in excruciatingly slow circles that were perfectly timed to the long, steady thrusts of his hips.
He locked his eyes on hers then, and she wanted to hold his gaze, she wanted to, but she had to close her eyes and concentrate or risk losing control. Tough enough trick as it was, and now she had to work to let this happen, to let the jolts of sensation flow through her but to keep that one part of her mind held safely away. She dimly registered the sounds swirling around her: moans and pleas tumbling from her own lips, sharp grunts from Logan as he sped up, gave her shorter, harder thrusts, pushed her right to the brink and shoved her mercilessly over.
She came apart with a broken cry and an irrepressible heave of her body; she jolted forward against Logan and clung to him, pressed her face against his neck and focused on breathing, on keeping things together a little longer. She barely noticed Logan's arm tightening around her waist, his low groan and sudden stillness, but she did notice him easing up, relaxing and wrapping her in a gentler embrace.
And then she almost giggled at the way he nudged against the side of her face with his jaw, like a puppy seeking attention. Instead she lifted her head and met his lips with hers, let herself get lost in the soft wet heat of his mouth. It seemed like forever – an easy, blissful forever – before she drew her head back and gazed at him, feeling unsteady. "Hi," she mumbled. "'m I heavy?"
"Sack of bricks," he replied, and she had to smile. She recognized his expression well enough even if she hadn't ever seen it in such a context; she knew the lazy relaxation, the slight curve of his mouth. This was Logan pleased, and she felt a sudden surge of pride. "How's the skin?"
"We've got a few minutes." She kissed him once, lightly, and then again.
"So...I'm really not crazy."
"No?"
She shook her head, then leaned in to bite gently on his earlobe.
"Nope," she murmured. "You *have* been flirting with me."
Logan tilted his head back to stare at her for a moment and then laughed, a low purr of a chuckle. "Started to wonder if you were ever gonna notice."
She shrugged, smirked, scratched her fingernails lightly across the back of his neck. "I noticed, all right. Just wasn't sure if..."
"If?"
"If you meant it," she admitted quietly. She grimaced as he shifted her; sex against a wall was one thing, but disengaging was apparently something else entirely. When her feet touched the ground she wobbled unsteadily and leaned on him for support, but then stepped away and forced a smile. "Guess I'm sure now, aren't I?"
"I'd hope so."
And he reached for her but she flinched away, then sighed at the hurt that flashed across his eyes. It suddenly seemed like she'd used up her courage, her knowledge of what to do and how. It seemed like she was seventeen again, fumbling through the motions of wanting what she wasn't old enough to have. "Sorry," she offered awkwardly. "My skin...I just need a few minutes."
Logan nodded, watching her closely. "It's hard on you, controlling it?"
"Not really hard so much as –" and she burst out in nervous laughter, glancing down at herself. "God, we're a mess." Smoothing her skirt, she edged around him and looked towards his bathroom. "I'm just gonna – I'll be right back."
In the bathroom she cleaned up and straightened her clothes and then stood at the mirror, staring at herself. She felt different and it wasn't hard to figure out why; sleeping with Bobby and Remy had always had an element of the clinical to it, a precise attention to every inch of exposed skin, every second of potential danger. It had always been careful and restrained, and never enough to satisfy her longing for more, for freedom, for the ability to unleash.
But this was Logan. This was incomparable to experience and fantasy both; this was a whole new ballgame.
Her reflection looked the same.
But from where she was standing, it was the only thing that did.
She ran her fingers through her disheveled hair and took a deep breath, bracing herself for whatever wound up happening. When she returned to the bedroom Logan was sprawled sideways on the bed but he sat up once he caught sight of her. "Hey," he greeted her quietly, and held out a hand. "C'mere."
Her feet moved forward even as her mind hesitated. When she was close enough, Logan caught her at the waist and tugged her to stand between his knees, and he leaned his forehead against her chest, just under the collar of her shirt, barely above the swell of her breasts. She could feel his breath through the thin cotton, warming a line down the center of her torso. Cautiously, she rested her hands on his shoulders, rubbed lightly and kneaded with her fingers.
And long, silent minutes in the loose circle of his arms helped her relax; she eventually moved one hand to run through his hair, found a spot on the crown of his head that seemed made to fit the curve of her palm. When he finally lifted his head and looked up at her, she had no difficulty in smiling down at him. He didn't return it but his expression was relaxed and open, and she thought she liked him best like that, like he was in neutral with nothing pulling him to one extreme or another. "So," he said, his voice a low rumble. "You were saying?"
She frowned slightly and thought back, and then laughed. "Oh. It's not hard. Just...a process, I guess. Like building endurance? I'm working on it."
"When did you figure it out?"
"Last summer." She scratched lightly at his head and he leaned back into her hand, eyes sliding shut for a moment. "Had a breakthrough of sorts. But it's been just recently that I've made a lot of progress."
He cocked an eyebrow and watched her for a moment. "You saying I have good timing?"
Laughing again, she pulled together her concentration so that she could lean in and press several long, light kisses against his mouth. "Excellent timing," she agreed, straightening up again. "Were you planning this, before you got here?"
"No," he admitted. He'd gotten the point of her actions; his hands slipped under her shirt and smoothed up and down her back, pausing occasionally to massage spots of tension. "You caught me off guard."
"Me? What'd I do?"
"Grew up," he said simply. "It's written all over you."
She blinked at that; she'd never thought it could be so simple. She used to come up with elaborate schemes, carefully detailed plans for proving herself to him. They were the self-indulgent imaginings of a little girl, though; summer had arrived and things had happened and she'd proved only that she was very good at screwing up in deadly ways. "Oh," she whispered. "I guess I did."
"Does it have anything to do with whatever Xavier was talking about?"
She forced herself to hold his gaze. "Yes," she said.
"You ever going to tell me about it?"
"Does it matter that I don't want to?"
"It matters," he acknowledged, and pulled her a little closer, his hands just shy of being rough as they swept over her skin. "For awhile."
"Awhile will work." She sighed and closed her eyes, curled her back against his touch like a cat in heat. "Xavier happen to mention any of the *good* stuff?"
Logan leaned in and trailed his mouth slowly across her neck, flicked his tongue against the hollow of her throat. "Told him I'd get it from the horse's mouth."
"Mm," she murmured. "You really know how to charm a girl." Logan chuckled against her throat and she shivered. "I'm going to school."
"Good. What for?"
She sighed again as he sucked lightly on her collarbone. "Haven't decided. Just learning stuff for now."
"Any particular stu—"
And it all fell apart. Logan's hand moved across her stomach and he froze and fell silent; she froze and then jerked away, stumbling back and staring at him with startled dread crawling up her spine. "Logan..."
"Take it off."
The chill in his voice scared her even though she knew it wasn't meant for her, had almost nothing to do with her, and she didn't hesitate to obey. She pulled her shirt over her head and let her arms drop, exposing every scar to his searching gaze. The three on her stomach, sickeningly familiar every time she saw them, exactly as she used to imagine they would have looked on her chest or back. The one on her shoulder from surgery, flat and long and discolored despite all the ointments she'd used. And the fainter, smaller ones, scattered across her torso, silent testimony to every drop of blood she'd shed.
Logan stared for a long time and she grew more and more nervous. Finally he reached out, traced three fingers across her belly. One for each wound, a whisper-soft touch that nearly tickled it was so light. "Okay," he said hoarsely. "Changed my mind. It doesn't matter anymore."
"Logan –"
"*Talk*."
"That one...that was Mystique." She hesitated; she wanted to reach for him, to make it better somehow, but she couldn't figure out what he was thinking and was terrified of doing the wrong thing. "I pissed her off pretty good."
"Her fucking arms come off if I ever see her again," he said. Deadly quiet, calm, absolutely honest. She swallowed hard, waiting. "The rest?"
"Someone else."
"Tell me."
"It doesn't matter," she muttered. "Want to see a neat trick?" And she lifted off the ground and hovered for a moment, then settled back on her feet to deal with Logan's astonishment. "I'm a lot stronger. And...I don't know that I want to test it against adamantium, but there's not a whole lot that can hurt me anymore. You – you can stop worrying about me."
"No, I can't." He said it gently, finally meeting her eyes again instead of fixating on the scars, and she allowed herself to relax a little, allowed his words to sink in and warm her. "This has lasted nearly a year?"
She shrugged, flashed a rueful smile. "'This' will last forever, Logan. Hank thinks so, anyway. I...I took everything. She's dead."
She could tell immediately that he understood what she wasn't saying, that he saw the surge of guilt that had never diminished no matter how many times she went over everything with Xavier. She didn't think he'd be surprised to know that she sometimes went off by herself to allow a Carol mood, like payment on a debt that would never be fully laid to rest. She thought, from the way he looked at her after that confession, that he probably had her figured out better than any telepath ever could.
And he strengthened that sense; he didn't ask her for anything more, just shook his head slowly. "Someone should have called me," he said. Simple enough but she could hear an edge of anger beneath his words, a tinge of regret and frustration. "I'd have come back, I'd have healed y–"
"Hey," she cut in, pressing her fingertips to his lips. "Don't you think I know that? There wasn't time at first. I was sorta dying until Hank pulled off a few miracles, and then...I asked them not to contact you."
He frowned up at her, a mostly-curious scowl. "Why?"
Shrugging again, she shifted her attention to tugging down the zipper on her skirt. As she let the material pool at her feet, she unclasped her bra and slipped it off, and smiled at the slackening of Logan's mouth, the darkening of his eyes. "Because I figured you'd always see me as a little girl," she told him evenly. "But I didn't want you seeing me as a helpless one. Not again, anyway."
"I've never thought of you as helpless," he replied. Beyond that he let it go, as she'd hoped he would. He traced the marks on her stomach once more and then pulled her in, falling back so fast that she sprawled clumsily on top of him. But he changed that quickly enough; he rolled and pinned her beneath him, and his mouth moving across her neck made her suck in a sharp breath. She reached to put her arms around him, but he fumbled for her wrists and pressed them to the mattress, and he bit softly on her earlobe and muttered, "stay put."
Which was a nice try and sort of tempting, but she startled giggling and he drew back to glare good-naturedly at her. "Something funny?" She grinned up at him and nodded, flexed her wrists lightly in his grip. "What?"
And she flipped him with no effort at all, laughed harder when he tried and couldn't get free. "I think someone doubted me," she murmured, getting control of her amusement. "Give up?"
"Have you ever known me to?"
"Good point." Shifting, she settled comfortably with her knees on either side of him, sitting back on his thighs. "Do it anyway. Trust me, Logan."
He nodded and relaxed very suddenly beneath her. Pleased, she slowly moved down the line of buttons on his shirt, deftly flipping each one through its hole. "Get rid of that," she told him when she was done. "T-shirt, too." She scooted back a few inches so that he could sit up all the way and discard his shirts, and then didn't resist when he slipped his arms around her, applied his mouth to the scar on her shoulder. She couldn't help but gasp as his tongue flicked it; there was a small amount of nerve damage, just enough to send a tingling sensation radiating out from under the teasing, suckling attention. "Logan."
"Hmm?" He murmured it against her skin, slowly but steadily curling his back and dipping his head, sliding his lips across the curve of one breast until he could close them over her nipple.
"Logan," she said again, really just a vaguely-shaped hiss of breath. She let him continue; as he switched to her other breast and settled his hands on her thighs, rubbing lightly, she fumbled between them and tugged at his jeans, fighting to get them open. Once she did she leaned back, easing away from his attentions and watching him appraisingly. "Lie back," she told him, testing, and he hesitated but then did as she asked.
She hooked her fingers into the waist of his jeans and slowly crawled backwards, taking them with her; he lifted his hips obligingly but otherwise stayed still. He was, thankfully, already barefoot, so she could easily peel the now-inside-out denim away and drop it aside. Finally able to look her fill, she found she didn't care to, not then. Instead she returned and settled back on his legs.
And then froze up, seized by uncertainty. As she bit her lip, her thoughts racing as fast as her heart, Logan touched her folded knees lightly. "Okay?"
"Yeah. I've just never..." She trailed off, frowning down at him and trying to think clearly.
Logan's expression took on a shade of doubt. "Never? You mean...when we just –"
She blinked in surprise. "No! I mean, yes, I'd – not like *that*, but I had –" She broke off and sighed, and held up her hands. "No gloves, Logan. No nothing. That's what I've never done."
Understanding lit his eyes, softened them, and he sat up again. "I think I get the problem. Want some advice?" She bit her lip again and nodded, and let him take her hands and guide them to press flat against his chest. "Pick a spot. Go from there."
She felt her face crack into a huge smile before she could stop it. Logan smiled back, small and brief and fond and patient, and then she didn't know why she would have wanted to hide her burst of happiness from him. She suddenly wanted to laugh, to press her face into his shoulder and laugh until she ached, until every last shred of nervous energy was expelled from her body. She wanted to tell him that it hadn't been a very good year, that she'd tried but she wasn't really the girl he remembered anymore, that she'd gained a few more things to hate about what her body could do.
She wanted to tell him that he was the only one ever to share the single thing that she could enjoy.
She couldn't quite find the words, and was happy enough thinking that it didn't matter, that he already knew. He looked like he might, anyway, the way he watched her as she began slowly to explore with her hands. His eyes never left hers, even when his head tilted back to let her fingers skim across his throat, sandpaper-rough this late at night, and he looked like –
He looked like she could do absolutely no wrong. It was a heady feeling, a rush of realization that combined with the tactile sensations from her fingertips and nearly overwhelmed her. Her hands skidded over his skin, from coarse stubble on his neck to taut smoothness over his collarbone, to the crinkle of softer hair and contour of muscle on his chest.
Eventually it was too much, and she had to go still and close her eyes and just breathe. And Logan did understand, he had to have figured out everything, because he didn't say a word. He just touched his mouth to hers in a slow, steady kiss that deepened with the same gradual ease as his hands smoothing down her sides and over her hips, guiding her up and forward and back down.
She loosed a low moan into his mouth as she sank onto him, and she slipped her arms under his, around his back, curled her palms over his shoulder blades. They shifted under her hands, muscles rippling as he wrapped his own arms around her and kissed her harder, more hungrily. He cupped the back of her neck in one hand and applied pressure to the small of her back with the other, urging her closer until it felt impossible to go any further.
And then closer still. She rocked down, took him as deep into her as she could, and then went still and focused on the slide of his tongue against hers, the brush of hair against the skin around her mouth, the gentle pull of occasional suckling bites on her lower lip. They both eased off slowly, until with one last graze of their lips she tilted her head to the side and watched him thoughtfully. His thumb was rubbing circles against the base of her neck; he found a knot and dug in, and she rolled her shoulder into the pressure and let her eyes slide shut. "Thank you," she said softly, words coming to her only once she couldn't see his intense gaze. "I needed to –"
"Don't," he broke in, his thumb going still. Something in his tone made her open her eyes again, and he looked uneasy. "Don't thank me for that."
"Why not?"
"You make it sound like I did you some sort of favor."
Not uneasy, she realized. Annoyed. "And you don't like that," she said cautiously.
Somehow that soothed him. He raised an eyebrow and went back to rubbing her shoulders, putting his entire hand into it this time. "Look around, Marie," he told her wryly. "I'd say you're pretty damn entitled to touch all you want right now."
She considered that, and then slowly untangled their arms so she could push against his chest, make him lean back until he was propped on his elbows. She twisted her hips intentionally, and smiled when he pulled in a sharp breath. "Right now?"
"And later." Logan's eyes moved slowly across her body, pausing finally to stare at where they were joined, where she was moving in torturously small ways, giving him tiny bursts of friction.
"When later?"
"Whenever you fucking feel like it, that's when later," he choked out. "Marie –"
She grabbed his hands in hers and tugged, yanking away his support and making him flop onto his back. Leaning over him, she rubbed her cheek against his. "Same goes for you," she murmured. "Touch me."
It was no surprise that she didn't have to tell him twice; he rolled her in a flash and drew back only to push back in. Once, twice, and a third time, strokes so long and hard they moved her entire body, the bed, the earth.
He paused long enough to alternate touches to the backs of her thighs, drawing her legs higher around his waist, then kept most of his weight off her with hands braced next to her shoulders and went back to thrusting into her, making her cry out, pushing her fast and steady toward release. Holding her gaze, he pressed their foreheads together, their noses lining up, their breath mingling between them, hot-damp-heavy like Mississippi in the grip of summer, just before a light twilight rain.
When he groaned and muttered her name and strings of encouraging words, she imagined she could feel them passing from him to her, crossing the thick, short space between them and being drawn in by her panting breaths. She imagined drinking them down, every single growl of "*Marie*" and "come on, baby" and "so fuckin' beautiful," filling herself with every sound he made that was about her, and them, and this.
She remembered being barely seventeen and having gray spaces inside where everyone overlapped, remembered the helpless confusion of being changed from the inside, slowly remapped until she was someone entirely new.
Someone who'd never existed without Logan burned into her mind. She'd convinced herself that she'd gotten better, that she'd found the boundaries of Marie again, and it was a lie all along. She wouldn't be able to convince herself again, she knew that well enough. Back then Logan had imprinted himself on her like a double exposure, like permanent retina burn, and he was doing it all over again.
Fool me once, she thought dizzily. She was never going to be the same. For the first time in her life, arching up beneath him and letting the building tension coil tight and snap loose, she found that more reassuring than the alternative.
Logan came with a choked off noise, and then he looked at her silently for what felt like ages before kissing her forehead and easing out and away. He pulled her against him without a word and rubbed her back in slow, broad sweeps of his hands, and she rested her head on his shoulder and fought a silly grin.
"Logan?" she said after awhile, idly scratching her fingernails through his chest hair. He shifted slightly, grunted what sounded like a querying response. "I should go before I fall asleep," she suggested softly. "Control and unconscious don't really work well together."
He shifted again, this time dislodging her from the warmth of his loose hold. He sat up and pulled her along with him, and she was about to get up and dress when she realized he was tugging the bedclothes out from under the pillow. "Under," he ordered. When she obeyed, curling up on her side and tucking a pillow between her arm and cheek, he drew them back up over her, past her shoulder, and tucked them securely into place. She heard him get up, and after a moment the lights went out.
And then he returned and settled down behind her and dropped his arm across her waist, and muttered, "night," against her hair, and she didn't bother resisting the urge to smile anymore.
She let it twist across her face, and the last thing she remembered thinking was that if this was different, she hoped nothing ever went back to the way it used to be.
**end**
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