"Rogue." Logan beckoned her away from Bobby and Piotr with a surly grunt and barest tilt of his head towards his room. As her eyebrows rose in question, he frowned but deigned to explain. "Need a word."
"Try "please" then, sugar. Heard that works real nice," she fired back, but nonetheless unfolded herself from the ratty couch the three of them were sharing in front of a broken-down TV.
"I'll leave the beggin’ up to your lapdogs, kid," he said, closing the door behind her and then coming to a halt as she stretched out on his bed, all big brown eyes and knowing smile. Usually, he would take the other end of the bed - not like there was any other furniture in the place - but this time, he decided against it. Proximity had become too dangerous, and Logan suspected Marie knew that. When he dropped to the floor to lean back against the door, her catlike satisfaction wavered and doubt crept across her face.
"What's wrong, Logan?"
Wrong? What was fuckin' wrong was that he had no idea how to start this conversation, Logan sweated. "Uh, there's somethin' we need to talk about," he forced out, not looking at her. "Somethin' about you an' me."
"Us? Logan? What's wrong with us? We're good, aren't we?" Marie's rising concern was fed by Logan's evasiveness, and his refusal to look at her. He might not talk a lot, but Logan always sat close, and his million little touches told her more than his words ever did. Why was he sitting clear on the other side of the room and refusing to look at her?
"Yeah, Marie. We're good," he rushed to answer. "But..." his struggle ground to a halt as Logan's patience evaporated. "You just have to quit it!" he snapped, suddenly uncaring of his reception. "Stop lookin' at me as if I'm lunch and you're hungry! Wear some clothes that will cover you for a change and for fuck's sake, stop with that lip thing," he groaned.
"Lunch ... clothes .. What? What lip thing?" Marie's concern was banished by his peremptory tone. Suddenly, she was pissed. "What the fuck are you talkin' about, sugar?"
Even without looking at her, Logan could pick up the false chord in her voice, and her scent was two parts satisfaction to one part anger. She had been playing him - and she was pissed off at getting caught, not at being misread. His heart ached at the lack of honesty: once, he knew her every thought and emotion before she did. Once, he would have been able to express himself without hiding behind anger. Suddenly, he decided to be straight with her. Completely straight.
"Do you know why I call you "kid", Marie?" She shook her head, her annoyance fading into curiosity. "Cause I know you're not, not anymore. But if we pretend for a bit longer, that's safer. Because you're not all grown up yet, either."
Marie's mind was still playing with the implications of his first statement ... why was it safer? Why should her growing up not be safe?" It was her inner-Logan that finally supplied the answer, his own self-disgust whispering in her ear "safe, as in, safe from me...".
Logan knew the minute she realised. Her brain thundered "he wants me" and her hormones responded with a flood of arousal that rolled over him like a wave. He threw his head back and closed his eyes to drown in that scent, and when his claws sprang in reaction, he plunged them into the doorframe to keep him there. Every sense he had was screaming "bed, now!"
Nine parts adamantium to one part willpower kept him braced against the door. Grabbing at his control, he opened his eyes to slide them over Marie's rosy face. She looked embarrassed, but not ashamed. Dragging her eyes up from the obvious bulge in his jeans, she returned his stare with equal measures of defiance and sensuality.
"I haven't been a kid for a while, Logan. You just getting' round to noticing now?" The low question dared him to admit, aloud, what his body had already told her. Marie's hot gaze said something else: she wanted the full shebang, the whole nine yards; nothing less than Logan as her lover. Now.
"That would be what I mean by "lunch", Marie," he spoke gently into the taut silence. "You shouldn't look at me like that. Or wear those little skirts with the boots. And the leather ... aah, Marie, the leather's the worst ..." his words trailed into an agonised sigh.
Still stunned by his admission, Marie knew it was time to come clean. Inner-Logan had explained the conflict he would be facing, with the Wolverine's slavering need tempered by Logan's stubborn honour. She had been playing on it, dressing herself directly from his fantasies and enlisting every flirtatious trick that had ever been directed at him. She wasn't surprised it had worked, but to be expected to talk about it ... that was new. Oh well, game over, she thought. Here's where he gives me the 'maybe I want to but we can't' speech.
"Why do you think I wear it, sugar? I know you like the leather, and the boots ... I just wasn't sure you liked them ... on me," she purred, refusing to back down. If Logan wanted to talk this out, talk they would, she vowed.
"I'm a man, Marie. 'Course I like them on you. I'm also your friend, and at least 20 years older than you. Two good reasons I can't do anything about it. And you're 17! No fucking way in hell will this happen," he said, an edge of desperation creeping in. The elephant in the room had been acknowledged, so wasn't this meant to get easier?
"Why not, sugar? What's wrong with more? What's wrong with a little lovin' between friends? Or you being a little older than me? I mean, you're probably older than EVERYONE, but you still deserve someone to love you. And I don't just mean fucking." Marie's words were soft, but still tinged with defiance.
You had to give it to the girl, Logan thought, she was willing to fight for what she wanted. And if she had employed his own memories against him, well, she was just using all the weapons she had available. It wasn't her fault he was a goddamn tomcat with the morals of ... well, no morals at all, really.
"Marie. I don't do little girls. I especially don't do little girls I'm responsible for. And there's no way in hell I'm doing you. No matter how much I want to." He frowned as Marie flinched at the finality in his voice. Rejection, no matter how noble, was still rejection. But Marie, being Marie, wasn't willing to give up just yet.
"What am I supposed to do, Logan? Ignore the way you make me hot just by walking into the room? Pretend I don't see you watching me and smelling me and wanting me, just so's you don't get too horny? Use Bobby or Pete when I get too horny to think? To walk, even? Just to scratch YOUR itch? That's not fair, Logan. Even they know they're not the ones making me hot."
His eyes closed as her monologue bit into his self control. He hadn't known it was mutual. Innocent arousal, yes, but strategies to satisfy it? The tearing need that an ungovernable lust could bring? He wondered if it was him-in-her-head that fired it. Or perhaps - and his throat went dry at the possibility - little Marie was perfectly capable of her own feral passion.
"Shit, Marie. We got a problem here," he groaned. "I'm not going to pretend I don't want you. I do. But I just can't have you yet. Not while the X-men and the kids need me. I can't have you and be the man they need me to be," he said, counting on her understanding.
No one but Marie knew how much he struggled with The Wolverine ... they thought the curt, rude badass was his rough side. Only Marie knew that THAT man was Logan, constantly bad tempered under the strain of keeping his feral qualities under control. The Wolverine didn't give a fuck about any of them - he would have taken off immediately after Stryker's attack. With Marie, Logan reminded himself. And he sure as hell knew what would have happened next if he'd let that happen.
And that's why we need to fix this, he reminded himself. 'Cause it ain't gonna happen. "Jesus, kid. We've got to sort this out. It's gonna kill us both otherwise ... or get us killed," he reminded her. "You ain't concentratin' when you're fighting. I can't concentrate unless I'm fighting ... and we don't have the Danger Room to let off steam anymore ... how the fuck are we going to get through this?"
Marie surrendered in the face of his frustration. She knew how much being a good man meant to him. The world could go fuck itself - it was Logan that he needed to keep square with. And with the Wolverine inside, that was rarely easy. Marie sighed. Time to be the martyr. Again.
"Okay, sugar. I'll stop. I'll pretend you're the big brother I ain't never had and will go paddle in the kid's pool. But it's just for a while. Like a truce or something," she said, her reluctance clear. "I need to know this isn't forever, Logan. That, one day, you're going pull your head outta your ass on this and realise you and me together is a good thing. The right thing for us both," she said, her quiet voice losing all sarcasm in its seriousness.
He couldn't disagree with her. Good wouldn't begin to describe what they would be together. He knew it, Wolverine knew it, and it looked like Marie knew it too. His voice gruff with emotion, Logan took her up her offer: "Thanks, sweetheart. Just for a while. I'll make you a deal. Let's keep it light until the X-geeks are back on their cloud or whatever. Play with the kids, do whatever you need to do. But remember you're mine, and when this is all over, we're taking off. Just the two of us, no holding back."
Marie gulped at that. The air thickened again, and Logan closed his eyes. He'd obviously said somethin' she liked; he wondered which part. Threatenin' her with "no holding back" wasn't smart - did Marie even know the Wolverine wanted her as much - more - than he did? And could she, in her innocence, possibly know what that meant?
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