Logan moved from one intriguing display to the next, raising his eyebrows at some and wrinkling his brow in sheer puzzlement at others. Where sex was concerned, he had thought he was pretty experienced. Madame X’s Emporium was teaching him otherwise.
Juggling two jars of edible body paint, a black leather thing that would make Marie’s already world-class tits look lethal, and several supersize boxes of condoms, Logan began to regret not collecting a dinky little basket at the entrance. He hadn’t wanted to look like a pervert, and how much stuff did he need anyway? His scowl lifted when he thought about just how much fun it would be to bring Marie here – and explain, oh-so-explicitly, exactly what could be achieved with the various toys. Huh. A basket would have hidden his hard-on as well. Maybe that’s why every one else seemed to have one.
What Logan couldn’t see were the bodysuits he’d actually come for. Right, sales desk. You can do this shopping thing. He tried not to laugh as he saw the woman silhouetted by a thousand raunchy items at the cash register – 50ish, sharp-curled grey hair and a perfectly ironed white blouse with a demure peter-pan collar. He peered at the nametag on her well-concealed bosom.
“Uh, Mavis? I rang up earlier looking for full-body skinsuits, and I was told you had some here?”
“Oh yes, sweetheart. We don’t get a lot of call for them so they’re in the back. I’ll get someone to bring them up for you. What size?”
“I think she said a size six. But curvy. She’s very curvy.” Mavis’ motherly smile stretched even broader, and her warm regard made him thankful he hadn’t brought Marie in with him. He suspected the lady wouldn’t be nearly so sweet if she saw his teenage lover. He certainly wouldn’t give anyone like him the time of day.
Good mood derailed, he prowled about the store for the next few minutes, no longer able to take any pleasure in the weird accoutrements. When a weedy guy arrived nearly buried under swathes of multi-coloured fabric, he jumped the poor bastard in his keenness to escape.
“Wotcha got?” Logan examined each bodysuit with an eye to transparency, softness on the skin, and the potential to transmit touch. After consideration, he discarded nylon as too irritating, and lycra as too much of a barrier to sensation. Silk by itself didn’t have enough resilience, but this blend … stretchy, silky, damn-near transparent. His mouth watered obligingly, and that was pretty much that.
“I’ll take that one you’ve got there, the creamy colour. And can you have others made up in size six? Whole bunch of colours? Reds and greens, maybe a couple in black?”
He was forced to look through a little book of materials and mark his choices before handing over an obscene amount of cash. Organising to have the day’s purchases couriered over, and the rest sent on as soon as they were available, Logan strode out onto the street and restrained himself from making a beeline for the house in Chelsea. Business first. Then pleasure.
XXXXX
Where was the fuckin’ contact anyway? Logan glanced at his watch for the fifth time and growled at the ten minutes that had elapsed since the dickhead was supposed to be here. Street signs said West 41st and Ninth, and the fucking buses seemed to think this was the bus terminal, so he was in the right place. Waiting. He hated waiting, and still wasn’t convinced some Brotherhood motherfucker was worth waiting for.
“Wolverine”. He nearly laughed at the familiar voice that drew his attention. Kid had learnt something. He could smell the tang of lighter fuel and raw flame: Pyro, for sure. But he couldn’t see the kid yet, and he’d kept his voice so soft that only someone with augmented senses would be able to hear. Wolverine had to admit he was impressed. Traitorous little fucker got smart.
Following the voice into a derelict-looking doorway, it opened quickly to admit him. Pyro grabbed his arm as the door shut, already hustling him towards the back of the house. Wolverine would have bristled, but the stricken expression on the kid’s face had him worried.
“Pyro! What’s wrong? What’s going on?” Wolverine dug his feet into the floor and 300 pounds of adamantium-enhanced feral stopped dead. Pyro – what was his real name? John something? – swore loudly but refused to look into his eyes.
“Look, man, there’s some serious shit going down and you’ve gotta talk to the man. Mutual non-agression, truce, whatever. Fine. But things just got ugly and we need to do something. Now.” The words were sour with fear and desperation, the scent convincing him more than any fast talking ever would. Logan’s mind began to race with possibilities as he followed Pyro up the stairs.
Beyond an iron door with the kinda locks that looked like nothing he ever remembered seeing, but still knew how to pick, Wolverine scoped the full complement of Brotherhood. Magneto. Fucker. Mystique. Bitch. But useful. Sabretooth. Must get round to gutting that bastard.
Several scents that he didn’t know rushed to meet him before he was even able to count how many people were crowded into the metal-shrouded room. Lots. Lots of very scared, very angry mutants had swollen the ranks of the Brotherhood.
“Wolverine. I have some dreadful news for you.” For once, Magneto skipped all the usual preliminary taunts. Huh.
“There’s been an attack. Several attacks, really. Your house in Chelsea, the one down the road, and the one in Brooklyn.” Wolverine could smell the sorrow in Magneto’s voice, and knew the outcome couldn’t be positive. But they knew about it – surely that meant survivors. He been drilling them and drilling them, and Marie, at least, had paid attention. She would have got away.
“We have reports of several casualties. Mainly children. A few escaped, but … none with powers of any interest to the government. We believe most have been captured. Right now, we are trying to find out where they’ve been sent.” Magneto, of all people, had sympathy oozing from his pores.
“Powers of interest”. Marie. Captured. He knew it, as innately as he had known the face of the man who poured adamantium onto his bones. Stryker might be dead, but his evil lingered. And that evil had taken Marie.
He felt the soldier they told him he’d once been snap into place, drowning out even the Wolverine’s dull roar. There was a plan to be made, and executed. He was on familiar ground. Logan ignored the tiny voice that protested he had never cared this much before. Never had so much to lose.
“What do you know, and when do we move?” He didn’t have to pledge his support to the Brotherhood. That was the good thing about the bad guys – they already knew every man was in it for himself. Little details like allegiance and motives were easily overlooked in the race to death and destruction. The Wolverine approved.
Magneto inclined his head, and unlike Xavier, didn’t even bother to ask Logan to sit down. He simply pushed the map across the table, and indicated several locations already ringed in red. “They’ve split them up. From what we can tell, the alphas are being kept here,” Lensherr said, motioning to a spot on the map which showed nothing other than a lonely rural intersection in upstate New York.
“Supposedly it’s a mental hospital. But the guards are armed with a hell of a lot more than batons, and Nurse Ratchet looks like an angel compared to most of the humans that work there,” he spat.
Logan had only one question. “Alphas?”
“Yes, those the government considers dangerous. Charles, Summers, Storm, Rogue, Colossus, Shadowcat. Apparently Iceman and Jubilee didn’t make the cut, because they are being held at the other location,” Magneto tapped another red circle, this time in deepest suburban New Jersey. “Most of the younger children are with them. Ironically, it seems to be a school. But again, rather unfriendly guards.”
“What’s the other one,” Logan asked, staring at a third location, this time highlighted in black.
“That, my feral friend, is our rendezvous point. Once yourself, Mystique, Pyro and Sabretooth have recovered whomsoever you can, get them there and we will get them out. Our very own Underground Railway.”
The Wolverine grunted his approval, and looked around at his new team. “Anyone hurts an X-man, or any of the kids, and I will kill them. Every one else is fair game.” Sabretooth snarled at the restriction, Mystique masked her intentions with a surprisingly sweet smile, and Pyro was honestly pissed. Logan suspected it was because it hadn’t occurred to him to go after the X-men: he wasn’t used to being one of the bad guys just yet.
“We going then?” Magneto rolled his eyes at Logan’s impatience, and signalled to Mystique.
“I trust this might increase your success rate,” he quipped, as Mystique took a small pack from the cupboard. Night vision glasses, gas grenades, first-aid kit, even a cunning little Beretta with two full clips and a box of bullets. Logan could feel the Wolverine pushing forward, drawn by the scent of gun oil. Even he knew that slice-and-dice might be fun, but bang bang was a lot more efficient.
“Nice. We going NOW?” Mystique nodded and donned her own pack, Sabretooth and Pyro joining them. “Yourself and Sabretooth have got the same basic kit. I’ve got a decoder and system scrambler as well; Pyro has a few nice toys that light up,” the blue mutant explained as they headed up the stairs. “And we’re flying,” she added needlessly as they emerged onto the roof of the building, a newly marked helipad and gleaming white helicopter disguised by a simple grey sheet erected overhead.
Logan strapped himself into the seat besides Pyro as Mystique ran through the pre-flight routine. The fire thrower was agitated, his usual flick-flick having escalated into a constant flow of flame dancing from hand to hand. As they lifted from the heli-pad, Logan raised his voice to be heard over the whomping of the blades.
“Hey, kid.” Pyro looked at him, his mouth twisting into a mocking smile.
“Bet you don’t call Rogue that anymore,” he said. “How long did it take you to get into her pants,anyway?”
Logan choked, wondering just how interlinked the Brotherhood and Xavier’s crew really were. He wouldn’t have expected the gossip to have reached the so-called enemy by now.
“Jesus, man, it’s written all over your face. Always was. I knew she was yours the minute you walked back in that door – hell, she was probably yours the day you walked out, but you were trying hard not to notice.” Pyro laughed, bitter but amused. “Bobby was a fool for thinking that girl ever belonged to anyone but you. I mean, if there was ever a chance? I would have SO been there. But I can see the signs, and Rogue? Hers was a big, flashing ‘Wolverine’.”
Logan was trying hard not to like Pyro, but he was making all kinds of sense. Always had, really.
“S’none of your business, kid. But I wanted to say thank you. That time in Boston – I failed, and you looked out for Rogue. Thanks.”
“Fuck, dude, you were DEAD. Some failure! And in the end, Rogue stopped me, not them.” Pyro’s typical sullenness was back, and acrid resentment assaulted the Wolverine’s over-sensitive nose.
“Well, Xavier had them pretty well brainwashed. You weren’t afraid to strike, to protect yourself and your friends. You were right, they were wrong – and they know it now. Probably screaming it to the fuckin’ walls right now.”
Logan winced at his own words. It was said now, and he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t said it, hadn’t thought it. He felt bile rising in the back of his throat at the thought of Marie in the hands of his torturers. He spat and called on every ounce of detachment he possessed. Not now. He couldn’t think of this now.
XXXXX
Flying time was 42 minutes exactly, the Wolverine noted as he leapt from the helicopter. Hidden in a copse at the back of the asylum, they would move as a team, then split up in search of the detainees. Everyone knew who his priority was, and Mystique had been entrusted with extracting Xavier safely. Everyone else would take their chances.
Taking point, with Mystique and Pyro behind him and Sabretooth on the flank, Wolverine ran in a low crouch towards a set of anonymous double doors that were obviously little used – the rust running across the centre line suggested they’d not been opened in years. Rather than try and muscle a recalcitrant lock, Wolverine simply sliced around it, and then shouldered the doors open. No alarm. He rolled his eyes in disgust – did they expect intruders to come through the front door or something?
It was a laundry exit, he noted, scanning banks of dirty washing, chemicals and piles of folded clothes. Including uniforms. He smirked, and took a moment to exchange his civvies for camo gear. He handed one to Pyro, and then eyed Sabretooth’s massive bulk. Guy would be more convincing as an inmate, anyway. Regardless of whether the staff thought they were housing psychos or mutants.
Wolverine outlined his plan to Mystique, who overrode Sabretooth’s snarled objections without glancing at the giant feral. Somewhat surprised at her support, Wolverine was astonished when she even embellished his plan: she would slip out to find a high-ranking doctor to impersonate, and access the prisoner files. Precise locations for each of their targets would make the extraction that much more rapid. And everybody liked the idea of knowing exactly what the government had planned for their mutant captives.
Blue woman was a fuckin’ tactical genius, Wolverine grudgingly admitted. Right now, needs must, but perhaps a long term alliance with the Brotherhood would be in Xavier’s interest. God knows Mystique was better equipped to do the thinkin’ than Scotty-boy was. And if Sabretooth could be kept on the straight and narrow, he’d be a good match for Colossus in the big-and-brawny stakes, adding serious depth to their combat capability. A combined Brotherhood-Xmen force would be formidable, and maybe no one would notice the absence of a cranky superhealer and a little touch empath.
Retrieving his thoughts from the rosy path they were skipping along, Wolverine growled at his own inability to focus and investigated their readiness to proceed. Barking an order at Pyro, he shook his head at the subordination on the kid’s face, and explained – not patiently, but this wasn’t fuckin’ chess – the need to make like soldiers.
“When I give you an order, you say ‘Sir!’ and you fuckin’ do it. And stand up straight, and get all that hair outta ya face. You’re in the army now, kid.” Wolverine was almost smirking when he finished.
“And you.” He turned to Sabretooth and looked critically at the angry feral. “We don’t have any restraints, so we’re gonna have to pretend you’re drugged. Walk slow, shuffle even. And keep your eyes half closed.”
Sabretooth growled threateningly and slowly showed Wolverine his middle claw. “And the horse you rode in on, runt.” Nonetheless, he practiced looking docile, as Pyro made encouraging sounds. It was like walkin’ in on a game of charades, Wolverine thought with cold amusement. Difference was, the guns were real.
Moments later, a white-coated doctor cracked open the door, and only the familiar scent suggested he was actually a she.
“All done,” Mystique said quietly in deep baritone. “They’re on the second floor, in adjacent rooms. Guards at the lifts and spaced throughout the corridor, so we’re going to go in softly, and get out fast. This guy is the head “psychiatrist” so no one should give us trouble. And I downloaded everything they had on the mainframe – nice, fast computers here. And very good access to the Department of Defense, I might add,” the suddenly balding, overweight Mystique said.
“Your patient ready for transfer then, doctor,” Wolverine said with a sharp salute. Mystique smiled widely at the joke, chuckled and poked her head out of the laundry room.
“Well then, let’s proceed, sergeant,” she said, in a tone that Wolverine found disturbingly flirtatious coming from such an unattractive man.
With “Dr Harrison” in the lead, the prisoner transfer was waved through the reception area, into the lift, and was exiting the second floor before anyone thought to challenge them.
“Uh, doc? We haven’t seen any paperwork on this one at all. Ain’t we supposed to identify all of the prisoners before they check in?” Wolverine could tell the red-headed kid in the oversized fatigues was doing his best not to piss off the head honcho. Didn’t mean he’d succeed, though.
“The papers, Jones, are in the reception,” Mystique-as-Harrison snapped. “You obviously haven’t read the new protocols as they made me spend a fucking HOUR down there going through it all. Now, you want me to go through it again? Or would you prefer we get this animal – who is due for new tranks – in his cell?”
At the suggestion he might emerge from his stupor, Sabretooth attempted to focus his bleary eyes on the over-zealous guards and let rip with a sleepy but ferocious growl. They were waved on within seconds.
Trying to maintain his bored expression – who knew Sabretooth could act? – Wolverine snapped out yet another salute and nearly goosestepped away. Pompous jerks. One more set of guards and they’d be reaching the first of the rooms – Xavier’s, it happened. They’d be bypassing that to get straight to Rogue in 206, if he had anything to say about it.
“Guard, I have a prisoner for Room – 206, I do believe. Has the room been prepared?” Shocked, Wolverine wondered briefly if Mystique was a telepath too. Or was he just that fucking transparent?
“Uh, sorry doc – we’ve already got someone in there. A girl – you don’t want to be putting him in with her,” the older of the two guards – Crowther, according to his badge – said. “But, you’ll want him locked up asap, so we’ll just get her out for you; she’s easy enough to control.”
Wolverine braced himself not to react to seeing Marie. Beaten Marie? Brutalised? He hardened himself as Crowther stomped into the room, and then she was there, all tumbled hair and sleepy eyes. Flinching at the sight of the doctor, she shot a mutinous look in the direction of the soldiers and their prisoner. Wolverine had tutored Marie in what to do if this ever happened, and she had paid attention. The disinterested gaze that flicked over him held no recognition, little regard, and nil warmth.
“We’ll take her downstairs for reassignment. I think she’s on our list to transfer out,” Mystique said, frowning down at the clipboard she says. “Papers are all downstairs, I’ve just got room numbers here – 201 through 206.”
Crowther shrugged. “Guess that makes sense, them moving them all out together. Came in together. Maybe they want ‘em somewhere safer. Something about this lot – not like the usual scum, you know.” He frowned reprovingly at Wolverine and Pyro. “You treat ‘em OK, ‘cause they might be mutants, but they’re not bad people. Unlike some,” he said, outright glaring at the fake doctor.
Wolverine suppressed an annoyed groan as he realised Crowther had just earned the right to live. How fuckin’ inconvenient. He snarled and motioned towards the doors either side of Marie. “Just open up and let’s get out of here. All these muties make my skin crawl.”
Five minutes later, their little convoy, Mystique in the lead and Wolverine and Pyro in the back, sailed through reception. Xavier hadn’t even had to push anyone to let them through, and while Scott was itching to blast their way out, Logan made uncharacteristic call for a low key exit. He just wanted Marie out of there, and away. If the cost was a bloodless victory, so be it.
As they marched steadily through the halls towards the reception area, Wolverine kept darting sidelong glances at Marie. There was something going on, something he couldn’t put his finger on or identify in her scent. The apathy on her face chilled him, and the constant hand-over-hand motion was driving him nuts. Perhaps she was missing her gloves.
He stopped dead. Her gloves? Why wasn’t Rogue wearing her gloves – surely they hadn’t wanted her to risk touching a guard by accident. No one would take that sort of chance. His eyes roved over her familiar frame, cataloguing every change. There. A flash of black ink not quite hidden by the sleeve of her t-shirt. Unthinkingly, he moved to push her shirt up for a better look, drawing the attention of the nurse at the desk.
“No need to worry about that one,” the blowsy blonde said snidely. “The tattoos have worked like a charm. Can’t hurt anyone now – neutered like a little bitch she is,” the woman tittered, targeting the fuming Wolverine with a smile she obviously thought seductive.
“Heard about the technology but never seen it before,” he responded, gritting his teeth through a toothy grin. “Interesting.”
“Nothing but the best for mutie control,” the blonde simpered. “We get all the fun toys.” Wolverine couldn’t even pretend to respond this time, simply nodding and turning his back to march his little crew out through the front door. A sharp turn through the shrubbery had them heading back to the helicopter, and Mystique had resumed her own form before the runners left the ground.
“Good job, team,” she grinned, throwing a taunting smile at Xavier. He was too shaken up to respond: discussions of a truce with the Brotherhood obviously hadn’t prepared him for the reality of being rescued by them. Again.
Wolverine’s amusement faded as he contemplated Marie, sitting opposite him in the bench seat. She still hadn’t said a word, or even smiled. They were safe now, so why the fuck was she still acting like a prisoner?
“Marie?” Chocolate eyes lifted to stare at him, the rich colour failing to disguise the coldness in their depths.
“So. You’re the Wolverine. I was wondering when I’d meet you.” Disinterested, cold, clinical. And very, very definitely NOT his Marie.
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