Marie flung herself at the side of her truck. Damn him. Damn him to hell and back and back again. The fucking twit!
The single-pump gas station she'd stopped at, on a dirt road in the backend of nowhere, held only a tiny clapboard wreck of a building, sagging in the dank humidity of nightfall. Locusts buzzed and hummed incessantly. Fireflies danced against the darkness just beyond the zone of light intermittently stuttering forth from the cock-eyed sign above her head: reds Gas. Evidently the 'F' had fallen off long ago; the absence of an apostrophe wasn't a surprise.
Yanking the sponge/squeegee from its bucket of slimy, faintly Windexy smelling water, she furiously slammed it against the windshield, scrubbing at the dried bugs plastered to the dusty surface. Crispy wings and matchstick legs and other bits she tried not to identify, flaking away like so much delicate pastry crust, turned to a muck of soupy goo under the dripping scrub sponge.
She pulled up a windshield wiper, attempting to dislodge the fibrous remains of a very large Praying Mantis, got the squeegee firmly tangled in the blade, and it snapped off and went flying past her shoulder. Dumbstruck, she watched it bounce on the broken asphalt, the tip bent like a bony finger, pointing at her accusingly.
Fuck it. It probably wouldn't rain for a month. She eyed the black sky overhead and decided that with her luck, it would rain inside an hour. It was certainly humid enough.
Biting back the raging irritation, she again turned to her task, scrubbing and huffing and straining - but no matter the effort, she just wasn't tall enough to reach more than a few feet toward the center of the windshield. Another lunge, and the stick in her hand got away from her, landing smack in the middle of the hood.
She stood back and gaped at her predicament. Fucking truck! Why couldn't she have had the foresight or the patience to commandeer one of Xavier's numerous other vehicles? Like that little red sports car, the convertible. Or even that piece-of-shit Acura. No, she'd been in such a tearing hurry to leave, she'd grabbed the closest one - the full-sized pick-up the groundskeeper used to haul downed tree limbs and cuttings and raked leaves and oily lawn mowers. The thing had to be at least thirty years old. The interior reeked of smelly dog and dead plants - and even though she liked the old man's pooch, a dopily friendly Labrador of the eager-to-please variety, the hound's odor was firmly entrenched in the threadbare upholstery.
She took a running jump at the side of the truck, managing only to knock the squeegee farther from reach. Her feet sliding back to the ground, she lowered her head against the hot metal surface and sighed in defeat. This trip wasn't working out like she'd hoped.
It was the first time she'd returned to the South since landing at Xavier's Institute four years ago. Her parents happily handed her over at age sixteen, only too glad to get rid of her and the 'mutant problem' she presented. They'd given up custody and all parental rights and then quietly moved away; they'd never contacted her again.
Even so, it was only natural that fleeing for 'home' was the first thing that popped into her head after Bobby's betrayal. The parental units weren't a concern; she had no desire to find or contact them. She only wanted the familiarity of soft summer nights and the more leisurely pace of life here; the company of homespun folksy type, uh, folks. She'd quite thoroughly forgotten how blatantly ignorant and slatternly some of them could be. Fred, the gas station proprietor parked on a rickety stool inside his tiny office, had only stared at her blankly when she'd handed him a fifty-dollar bill for the gas. “You want change?”
Did she want change? Hello! Of course she wanted change. Then it had dawned on her, watching his wheels slowly turning as he hemmed and hawed over his cash drawer, that mere counting was at the limits of his intellectual capacity.
Fred looked to be about sixty, a simpleton if there ever was one. She'd stood there waiting for him to figure it out and wondered what it must be like to vapidly wander through life without ever forming a convoluted thought - something she would have at one time sworn Bobby was in no way capable of doing. Turned out she was wrong.
Bobby. Her oh-so-very-nice, clean-cut, sweet-faced, non-pressuring boyfriend, forever patient and attentive and a lying deceitful sack of shit! Frantically making another jump for the squeegee, she cracked her knee on the fender and howled.
In the shadows of a huge tree dripping Spanish moss and home to a family of possums eager to get their night foraging underway, Logan slouched against his bike, arms crossed over his chest, and watched the girl's gyrations and frantic activity and tried really hard not to laugh. She was so goddamned mad, it was hilarious.
He watched her step back from the truck, taking a moment to rub her sore knee and make a show of pushing up her sleeves as if preparatory for a fight, even though she was wearing a tank top and the sleeves were only in her imagination. She then popped open the truck's passenger side door, wiggled her delectable ass in the air as she crawled along the bench seat, only to scoot backwards again, a dollar bill in one hand and a toolbox in the other.
Oh, this oughta be good. Vastly entertained, Logan settled himself more comfortably sideways on the bike's saddle and sat back to watch.
Marie stepped around the front of her truck and eyed the dispenser topped with a cardboard sign: Disposable Shammee - One Buck. Shammee, for God's sake. Although she supposed 'chamois' was a word bound to flummox even the more capable spellers of the world, this was the first time she'd seen this particular attempt at its rendition. At least Fred had gotten 'disposable' right.
Ungodly orange fabric stuck down out of the bottom of the machine's casing. The locking arm would give it up for a dollar, or so it claimed. She figured could stand on the toolbox and hopefully make a good stab at finally getting her windshield clean.
A bit doubtful if the machine would even work, Marie slipped the bill into the slot and surprisingly, it gobbled up the money without complaint. But then nothing happened. She jiggled the box and pulled at the orange cloth. Still, nothing happened. A glance at the dirt-grimed office windows, now nearly opaque due to nightfall, failed to reveal Fred's whereabouts.
Well, fuck! Again, she rattled the box and tugged at the orange cloth. Wrapping both fists into the small bit of fabric sticking out, just daring her to make the machine give it up, she yanked and flailed and heaved. Suddenly, the box popped open - but not the locking arm. About nine dollars in quarters, a mountain of dimes and nickels, a stick of wrapped chewing gum (?!) and a bottle cap dribbled in a stream to puddle at her feet.
Marie looked blankly at the mess and vacantly let go of the trailing end of the 'disposable shammee.' With an infuriated scream, she turned, drew her foot back and kicked the pile of silver into the air. Watching the flickering progress of the change raining down, her mouth dropped open. There was a man watching her. He was walking closer. She saw him flinch as a dollar and a half in flying change bounced off his face.
“Whoa, take it easy, darlin'. You need a hand?”
Marie felt so idiotic she couldn't think of anything to say. The man's smile shone whitely in the darkness. But then she decided it wasn't a smile after all. It was a smirk. A definite smirk. Of all the nerve!
She drew herself up with all the dignity she could muster, nose in the air. “No. No, thank you, I'm perfectly all right.”
The man looked like he was trying to swallow his lopsided grin as he stepped around her and took hold of the squeegee lying on the hood. He dropped it back into its bucket with a splash.
“You sure? Looks like you're havin' a rough night.”
Marie could only gape at him as he came to stand in front of her truck. Looking past him, she could dimly make out a motorcycle parked under the trees. The son of a bitch had been watching her make a spectacle of herself and it only made her madder.
“Yes, I'm sure! I'll just be on my way, I'll …” She trailed off and her eyes widened as a strange noise at her back made her turn. Had a radiator hose decided to give up? Oh, terrific!
She looked in astonishment as her truck began to sink at the front right corner. Not a radiator hose - a tire, bleating and squeaking out its rapidly depleting air pressure. She watched in stupefied shock as it sank into a state of complete flatness, coming to rest with a tired sigh on the rim. In the sudden silence, all she could hear were the bugs flinging themselves with suicidal glee into the lighted sign above their heads. And then the sign went out.
A creak of screen door, the whine of a tiny scooter, and Fred had apparently escaped out the back. At closing time, it seemed, Fred didn't waste any time in heading home.
Logan rubbed a hand over his mouth before the hilarity got away from him, but he couldn't keep it contained for long. He started to laugh. He was almost doubled over when she spun back around and slugged him a good one in the chest.
“This isn't funny! What am I supposed to do now?”
“Hey, hey, take it easy.” This poor kid - what a miserable day she was having. He got hold of her flailing hands and held them still. “Just sit tight, darlin'.”
She stood there, feeling helpless and foolish, and watched him throw the toolbox back inside the truck, toss her her bag, and pop the parking brake. He easily rolled the truck from the pump to the edge of the clearing, pulled the keys out, locked it up and held out a hand.
“Come on, kid. I got a place you can stay tonight. We'll take care of your truck in the mornin'.”
At the end of her rope, Marie looked around at the darkness of the still night and thought 'What the hell? Why not?' He was a little intimidating, maybe a lot intimidating - but her options were few at this point. Besides, she could always use her skin to keep him away if he turned out to be a creep.
She took a breath, took his offered hand, and let him lead her to his bike.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Story Notes:
There are many ways for our two favorite mutants to meet. This is one of them.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Summary: At the end of her rope, Marie looked around at the darkness of the still night and thought ‘What the hell? Why not?’