Marie knew the exact moment her cover was blown.
She fucked up, because she *knew* he wasn't supposed to be there, but she reacted anyway. Marie *always* reacted to Logan, even when he turned up unexpectedly. So when she was sure that none of the others was looking, Marie gave him the tiniest of smiles.
But Logan smirked at her, and she knew instantly it wasn't really him.
And if he wasn't Logan, he was Mystique, who would already look upon Marie's presence among the Brotherhood as suspect. Since Marie's loyalty to the Brotherhood hovered somewhere around nonexistent, any cursory mental scan would reveal the truth. In the incredibly short amount of time she had before Mystique regained her own form and attacked, Marie ran through her options.
Flight -- unlikely, given the remoteness of the damn bunker this particular sect of the Brotherhood had chosen. What masochistic prick picked fucking Siberia? Even if Marie could get out, she'd freeze to death before she came anywhere close to civilization.
Fight -- she might be able to take one or two of them at a time, but as soon as Mystique gave her up, she'd be besieged who knows how many guards. Plus Mystique, no doubt. Her cover would be blown to high heaven, and she wasn't sure whether any of the true believers would take kindly to the idea of letting the spy go in peace. And since Marie used her mutation sparingly (and preferred not to use it at all), she had no idea what kind of effect absorbing *that many* people at once would have -- especially when one of them was as fucked up as Mystique.
Though if she could use Mystique's powers for a few minutes, it might get her out of there. Which brought her, again, to fucking *Siberia.* If the odds weren't already stacked against her just from being in goddamn Siberia, Marie wasn't entirely confident that the rest of the X-Men knew where she was. She'd called in from a payphone near the Piazza Navona in Rome, but at the time, she'd only known enough to tell them she was headed for Russia.
Russia was a pretty goddamned big country, which meant the cavalry might take a while to reach her, if they were even looking for her yet. Which was unlikely, since her next scheduled check in wasn't for another few days.
Neither flight nor fight looked particularly appealing.
There was, of course, a third option: Lie. Coming up with a half-truth that explained her presence would be her best bet, she decided. In the few minutes that Mystique held Logan's form, Marie fabricated what she thought was a plausible cover story -- covert attempt to contact Magneto on Xavier's behalf. Not to infiltrate his organization; just to facilitate a truce. Marie figured that would appeal to Magneto's ego.
Wow, had she been wrong.
Mystique's reaction to Marie's ploy was painful even a week and a half later. Probably the bitter cold in her cell didn't help. When they'd tossed her into the bare room with a long, flannel shift and a pair of socks, she'd thought the consistent cold would numb the pain. It didn't.
Every chill, every shiver she couldn't suppress sent fresh shards of agony lancing up her arm from her wrist, which Mystique had twisted viciously until it gave with an audible snap.
Marie shuddered just remembering it, then moaned as her thigh seized up. The wicked gash in her leg was healing slowly but surely, thanks to the rudimentary care Magneto had provided for her. Marie wondered why he was bothering to keep her alive, dreading another crazyass mad-scientist machine requiring her unique gift to spare his cowardly hide.
Or maybe they'd keep her as a garden-variety hostage. She'd be really okay with that, as long as Magneto let *someone* know she was alive and imprisoned. Logan would come after her; the only question was whether he'd get there in time, because she'd very thoroughly examined her small cell, and there were no weak spots. There was no way out unless she could get her hands on some kind of weapon.
Marie heard a familiar scraping sound and rolled over on the rickety, uncomfortable cot to face the small, high window in the wall separating her cell from Tonya's. "You awake?" Marie whispered, ignoring the hot throb in her thigh from the movement.
After a moment, Tonya's plaintive voice answered, "My head hurts."
"More nightmares, sweetheart?" Marie guessed, trying to pitch her voice low and soothing.
"Yes," Tonya admitted, her voice unsteady.
Marie had never seen Tonya, but figured the girl was about ten or eleven. Far, far too young to be locked in a freezing cold cell. Marie shuddered to think what possible future Magneto had planned for the girl. "Do you want to tell me about it?"
"No."
She never did. Marie had never understood before she acquired Erik's and Logan's nightmares that some horrors were of such magnitude that simple words could never, ever describe them. "How about I tell you a story instead?"
"Okay," Tonya answered, her voice stronger now. "About Princess Melinda?"
Marie grinned. "Sure. Where'd we leave off?"
Tonya thought about it for a minute. "Princess Melinda just beat up the stupid Prince because she loved the guy with the horses."
Marie swallowed a laugh. "Right." She'd started telling fairy tales with a twist to calm Tonya and soothe her back to sleep. The stories were for Tonya, but Marie knew the telling helped keep her from going stark, raving mad from sheer boredom. Being a prisoner quite thoroughly *sucked.* "The stable boy," Marie remembered, smiling a little as she stared up at the dirty stone ceiling of her cell. She wondered absently if this stupid building had once been a gulag. It was about as comfortable as she would expect a gulag to be. "What was his name?"
"Luke," Tonya sighed happily. She really liked Luke, and had started adding her own details to the story, like the particulars of his wardrobe. "He wears cool jeans."
Amusement deserted Marie when she thought about her own, personal, jeans-wearing hero, if such a bland, all-American word could be used to describe someone as dark and difficult as Logan. They'd been growing apart these last couple years, and it scared the hell out of her. She'd long since given up any childish fantasies about Logan waiting patiently for her to grow into womanhood; these days, she'd cheerfully settle for his friendship.
The strained state of their relationship was a good part of the reason Marie had agreed to the professor's proposition. Undercover work was the perfect excuse to disappear for a while and let both of them take a good, hard look at what their lives were like without each other. Two weeks into her mission, Marie had realized she missed Logan fiercely.
Now that she was imprisoned, Marie had to face the very real possibility that she'd be killed before she could patch things up with Logan.
Ignoring her sudden funk, Marie forced herself to keep talking. She shamelessly described Logan, wondering if he'd be amused or offended to know she'd cast him in the role of stable boy. A dashing, romantic lead kind of stable boy, but still. Stable boy.
Somehow, Marie couldn't quite imagine Logan as *anyone's* servant.
After a while -- when Melinda and Luke were settling happily into life in their small cabin in the woods -- Tonya fell back asleep, leaving Marie alone in the dark. This was the part she'd grown to hate. Hour after hour of lying there, trying to focus on something other than her injuries and her predicament.
It never worked.
Marie rolled onto her back, whimpering a little, her injured wrist cradled against her stomach. She tried hard not to let herself worry about her arm. It was broken. Badly. And it was still swollen and unset and healing wrong. Whenever she thought about it, the flash of panic left her nauseated and utterly unable to sleep.
How would she fight with a permanently disfigured arm?
Fucking bitch Mystique. Marie wanted to kill her like she'd never wanted to kill anyone. Sometimes she wondered how much of that bloodlust was leftover from Logan and how much was her very own. If she got the opportunity to take Mystique out, she wouldn't trouble herself with trying to figure it out.
With that happy thought in mind, Marie started her self-imposed rehab --leg lifts for her uninjured leg, careful movements for her injured leg, and as many sit ups as she could manage before the pain in her wrist brought her to tears. After that, a regiment of isometric exercises.
Marie let her gaze trace the small square of faint light on the ceiling, then glanced out at the sliver of night sky she could see through the barred window. She wanted out so badly she could taste it, but she couldn't go alone, and she wasn't strong enough, yet, to carry Tonya and the others. Hell, she wasn't strong enough to *walk*, not really.
Fucking Mystique.
This faint scraping sound was so much softer this time that Marie thought she'd imagined it at first. Then she heard it again, her focus shifting to the wall separating her from Tonya. "Sweetheart? Are you awake?"
A long silence, then, "Marie?"
She froze, not letting herself react, not letting herself believe. The little bit of sweat she'd worked up cooled rapidly on her skin, sending a chill all the way down to her bones.
Logan.
Or was it Mystique? Because she'd thought Logan was here a few days ago, and the tiny, secret smile she'd favored him with had been a giveaway for Mystique.
Biting on the inside of her mouth, Marie rolled awkwardly to her feet, shifting almost all of her weight to her good leg. Just outside the barred door stood Logan, and the naked panic on his face convinced her it was really him.
Even if he did look ridiculous in his puffy, cold weather parka. At least it was black instead of bright blue or something equally inappropriate. And, wow, she was losing her mind if *that* was uppermost in her thoughts right now.
"Logan?"
Three claws glinted in the moonlight, but Marie rushed forward and whispered sharply, "No!"
Logan's arm halted as it arced toward her barred door. "What's wrong?" He glanced up, studying the door more closely, no doubt looking for some sort of booby trap. It was so *him* that it brought tears to her eyes.
Trembling, Marie reached through the bars, cupping his face in her palm. She wasn't sure where she got the courage to touch him with such familiarity, but she couldn't seem to stop herself. He was so beautiful, and he was real, and she'd missed him so much. "Logan," she whispered.
To her surprise, Logan leaned into her caress like a cat, the claws sliding back into his skin as he reached both arms into her cell to pull her forward.
She couldn't help the small yelp of surprise and pain, and Logan instantly froze, his hands on her hips. "What's wrong with you?" His gaze swept her more slowly this time, halting on the swollen arm she held cradled against her rib cage. "Fuck," he muttered, his entire frame vibrating with tension. "Who did this?"
"Doesn't matter. Logan, are you alone?" She knew even before he nodded that he was or he would have called in the others already.
"The professor told me two weeks without contact wasn't cause for concern," Logan answered bitterly.
"We have scheduled check-ins, Logan. I haven't actually missed one yet." Marie ignored his muttered opinion of that particular arrangement and focused on the immediate problem. "Can you get backup here?"
He frowned. "Not without a trip back to the nearest town."
Her excitement plummeted to the floor of her cell and shattered on the flagstone. "Damn." She remembered the rather lengthy trek across windswept snowdrifts to get to this godforsaken place. No way would Logan get back to town, get the others to *Siberia*, and get back to bust her and the others out tonight.
"Comm devices don't work without a relay tower, and there are none here," he explained, tapping the nearly indiscernible bulge in his jacket pocket where, apparently, he had his comm. device. Marie considered it a small miracle he'd agreed to carry it if he was truly off on his own to look for her. Logan shifted impatiently. "We have to go, Marie. Now."
"I can't." Before he could demand an answer, Marie reached for the hem of her dingy shift and hiked it up. The gash on her thigh was bandaged, but it still leaked blood and pus, a brutal reality that made her nauseated every time she had to clean it. Well, that plus the excruciating pain involved in touching it made her sick to her stomach.
"Shit," Logan whispered. He dropped to his knees outside her cell, reaching one bare hand toward her leg, clearly planning to heal her with or without her consent.
Awkwardly, Marie hopped backwards, out of his reach. "No, Logan," she whispered fiercely. "You have to go." Damn. Her voice sounded all strange and shaky. Because, truthfully, the last thing she wanted was for him to leave.
He narrowed his eyes, looking up at her without moving. "Go?"
"Yes," she hissed. "Right now. You need to leave. Magneto's here. If you're caught--"
"I won't be if we leave right now," Logan countered, rising to his full height. He was starting to sound frustrated, but Marie was a week past angry, and she really didn't feel like going ten rounds with him on this.
Marie put her good hand on her hip, but she figured the gesture lost a bit of its impact when she was unable to move her other arm. "I can barely stand up, Logan, never mind walk into town. It's *literally* Siberia out there. And--"
"I'll heal you."
She exhaled in an unsteady rush, half-laughing, half-crying. "You can't."
That got his attention. Logan tilted his head, just a little. "What do you mean?"
Marie glanced down at her arm. "It's been a week and a half. It's broken. Badly. And--"
Logan growled, low in his throat, and viciously punched the stone wall of her cell. He dropped his mangled hand to his side, breathing in sharp bursts as it began to heal. "No one set your wrist?"
She knew he was on the skinny edge of losing control, and she also knew her only chance of getting Tonya and the others out was to calm him down. "Logan," she said softly. "Logan, look at me." Still growling with each exhale, he focused angry hazel eyes on her. "Logan, there are kids in here. I can't leave them here."
He shook his head, unmoved. "I can't leave you here."
"You'll come back," Marie told him with confidence. Because she knew Logan, and she knew he'd move hell, high water, or huge-ass snow drifts to come back for her. "I trust you."
"I can't." Logan tried to reach for her again.
"Logan, think about it," she admonished. "You'd have to carry me. All the way. They might catch up with us."
He shrugged, unfazed. "So I kill them and we keep going. And then we get on a fucking plane and go home."
Would that it were that simple. Frustrated, Marie slapped her good hand against the bars. "Magneto's here, Logan. He can immobilize you with the flick of his wrist. If you get caught, we'll both be stuck in here. You have to go. Please, please, trust me."
"You know I trust you," Logan answered, his voice low. He stood just outside the bars, his gaze scanning her form, his expression darkening as he took in her bare legs and sock-clad feet. "You're freezing in there."
"I'm fine," she countered. "There are blankets." Thin, practically *useless* blankets, but she preferred to keep him focused on the issue at hand. "Go get the others and come back for me. For us."
"Come with me and we'll both come back for the others," Logan countered flatly. He wrapped both hands around the bars, as if he were seconds from yanking the door from its hinges.
"I can't," she told him, reaching out to run a finger across his gloved knuckles.
"Marie, please," he argued, a note of desperation in his voice. "I can't leave you in this fucking place."
God, she didn't want to stay. Freedom was so close she could taste it, but she could never leave Tonya or the other prisoners behind. "Logan, be reasonable. If you break me out, they'll know you've been here and they'll either kill Tonya and the others or they'll disappear with them. You know I'm right."
Logan's fingers tightened on the bars. "Marie..."
"Logan," she repeated, "you know I'm right. Please."
He turned away from her, his hands on his hips as he considered her arguments. She could hear him muttering something, probably curses, but she couldn't quite make out the words. Even with layer upon layer of cold-weather gear obscuring his frame, she could tell by the way he held himself that he was incredibly pissed off.
"She's ten, Logan," Marie said quietly. "I've been telling her fairy tales to calm her after the nightmares." Marie waited, watching as he weighed her words. When he turned his agonized face to her, she shrugged, letting him see the tears in her eyes. "Please. Go."
Logan looked so devastated that it shook her. He gave a half-hearted shake of his head. "Marie, I..."
She moved to the bars, reaching for him. "The sooner you go, the sooner you'll be back," she told him, her fingers sinking into fistfuls of his winter parka.
Logan tried his best to hug her through the bars, then settled for squeezing her shoulders so hard it almost hurt. "You be here when I get back," he ordered roughly, his fingers digging into her flesh. "You be *right here*."
"I will," she agreed, letting out her breath in a long rush.
"Promise me," he demanded, his voice harsh. "Promise me you'll be here."
"I promise, Logan."
He stared down at her, the intensity of his gaze stealing her breath. He reached up and untangled her hand from his jacket, then held it up and brushed his lips against her skin too quickly for her mutation to react.
"Fuck," Logan muttered, reaching through the bars to cup her face, using her hair as a barrier. Before she could react, he leaned in and kissed her. It was awkward, given the bars, but it was also perfect and possessive and passionate.
Marie felt the tingle of his thoughts and he pulled away, steadying himself on the bars for a moment before taking one step back, then another.
God, he'd just kissed her. Marie couldn't seem to summon words.
His form was nearly indiscernible in the shadows as he backed away. "Be here," he repeated.
"I promise," Marie vowed, her hands curling around the bars. She ached to go with him, to escape to safety with him, but she couldn't leave the children.
Logan lifted one hand, but instead of waving, he pointed at her. "Don't you dare fucking die on me. You *be here* when I get back." He didn't wait for an answer, turning and disappearing into the dark hallway.
Marie peered into the shadows for several long minutes, half-expecting him to come back for her right away. She was both relieved and scared when she realized he'd left her there. He actually left her there.
Limping heavily, she made her way back to her bed and sank onto the hard, unwelcoming, cold pallet, pulling the thin blanket over her body. She was shaking with the cold and the upheaval, but forced herself to take deep, calming breaths. Logan trusted her enough to leave her in danger. She was incredibly flattered and fucking terrified all at once.
What if--?
No.
"You will not cry," Marie ordered herself, slowly warming as the she curled her good leg into her body. "There's no reason to cry. Help is coming."
Plus, the tears would be really really *really* cold on her skin. Crying was pointless. Soon she'd be safe.
Also, he'd kissed her.
Logan. Had kissed her.
In a fucking Siberian *jail cell*, of all places!
No, she told herself. Don't worry about that. Think about how you can help when he gets back with the others. Memorize the layout of the jail, think about possible escape routes. Do something useful instead of mooning over Logan.
Marie stared at the grey stone wall. "Logan's coming back," she whispered, still a little bit stunned by his unexpected appearance, "and then we're going to have a little conversation."
THE END
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks to Em and Meg, for the title and the beta. ;) To Devil Doll, Diebin, Diane, and all the lovely WRFA people -- your archive rocks!