The roaring growl of Logan’s motorcycle startled Storm from where she lounged on the rec room couch between two blue furred mutants, Kurt’s long, twitching tail sliding up and down her tan legs, Hank’s claws massaging her scalp, brilliant strands of platinum hair entwined around his fingers. It was rare for the feral mutant and teacher to return to the mansion after dinner time, and particularly rare for him to bother her late at night.
Shaking herself free of the deliciously warm mutant hug-fest, she straightened her silk robe and tugged her short nightie further down her thighs. Her male companions growled discontentedly when she moved. Kurt was mostly asleep, and Hank, well, she knew what Hank wanted.
Winking suggestively, she stepped through the doorway in the corner of the room leading to a hidden staircase, providing access to the garage, “Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”
Downstairs, she found Logan standing in ragged blue jeans, bare chest visibly under a hastily buttoned shirt. Frowning, she noted the askew way the shirt fell as buttons had found themselves in the wrong buttonholes. His boots, of which he had several of the same pair in different colors, were mismatching. His hair was not even coifed into its normal spiky, aggressive hairdo, it was mussed, disheveled, and a five o’clock shadow was clearly visible on his normal well maintained chin.
“Logan?” she asked, concern evident in her voice.
Logan jumped violently, then jerked his head in her direction. His eyes were wide and red rimmed. He sniffled, hand coming up to wipe a stream of liquid that trickled down his grizzled cheek.
“Sorry ‘Ro,” he mumbled hoarsely, almost too quiet to be heard.
“What’s happened?” she asked, crazy scenarios running through her head. There had already been enough grief in the Wolverine’s life the past ten years. She wasn’t sure what else the man could take before his adamantium skeleton would be the only part of him left unbroken.
“Marie called.” he whispered, right hand worrying the worn silver ring that he refused to remove from his left hand. He stood next to an older model Odyssey minivan, keys sitting on the floor next to a leather strapped, green duffel bag. “She’s in the hospital... hurt bad by the sound of it. I’m going to get her.”
“Logan!” Storm snarled, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea! Think of what she’s done to you! Doesn’t she deserve a little pain?”
“Ororo,” Logan hissed, the sound of her name accompanied by the spit shooting from between clenched teeth and lips, “I am nothing anymore...I have...I have to make things right between us, or I’ll just continue a hollow, meaningless, existence inside this, this CAGE of normalcy!” hands gesturing at his surroundings.
“What happened was nothing you can control, Logan!” Storm protested, sputtering, “Things shouldn’t have worked out that way, what happened to Charlie wasn’t anything you could stop!”
“Leave Charlie the hell out of this!” Logan howled, horrible, raw pain evident in his voice. His muscles and veins stood out as he clenched his fists so tightly that blood trickled from the indentations of fingernails on palms. “Just leave him alone.” he whispered, voice weary, tired, hurting. “I’m going to get Marie, Storm. Do me a favor, wouldya?”
Storm knew she had pushed too far, Logan never referred to her as Storm...just ‘Ro, but acquiesced to his request nonetheless. “What can I do, Logan?”
“Could you clean up the lake house? I haven’t been...keeping up with things.”
“Sure, Logan, sure.” Storm whispered, she turned to leave, and caught a glimpse of Logan lifting a dusty car seat from inside the car. He placed it lovingly on the countertop covering the red, metal built in shelves that ran the length of the institute’s large garage. The worst part was the tears that streamed down Logan’s cheeks as he leaned down, clenching the plastic sides of the carrier desperately, sobbing quietly, heart breaking.
The garage door opened and shut ten minutes later. Storm still hadn’t made it all the way back up the stairs. Instead, she curled into a ball on the second landing, biting her fist in overwhelming grief, crying her eyes out. She barely felt Hank lift her and carry her upstairs and tuck her into bed.
Some wounds couldn’t be healed by time. They could only be overcome.
----------
Logan flipped the radio off, irritatedly, as he hit the winding back country roads that would eventually merge with the interstate. His annoying-as-hell GPS kept humming its “recalculating, recalculating,” nonsense in a British, far too-Chuck-like accent. Marie had insisted they install the GPS after they had purchased the van a few months following their marriage.
They, of course, being Logan, who had surprised his bride with the silver, tricked out, DVD player enhanced vehicle (plus plenty of secretly installed defensive capabilities) for their very first Christmas as a family.
A family.
Eyes still stinging, Logan rubbed them fiercely with the back of one palm. He would pull over and sleep through most of rush hour traffic once he hit the interstate, but there was still a good three or four hours worth of driving before then. His mind wandered, finally fixating on Marie.
It had always been Marie, you know?
His infatuation for Jean had only been a cover-up for his unwarranted, lustful feelings towards his younger protege. Jean, well, yes, Jean had been a beautiful woman. He had cared for her, but only as a friend. His constant antagonistic behavior towards Scott, fueled by his incorrigible flirting with Jean, had been both amusing and distracting.
He’d needed a lot of distracting, a lot of traveling, a lot of everything to stay away from Marie, who gravitated around him, towards him, as if he were a sun, and she, a planet. That still hadn’t stopped him from allowing her to snuggle with him in front of the fireplace in the teacher’s lounge, hadn’t stopped him from sneaking into her room at night to watch her sleep.
So, yeah, he’d been a bit of a stalker, but Marie had also followed him, entranced by him, and called to him like a moth to flame. More than once he’d caught her peeping around the edge of a pillar in the main hall as he returned from a night out on the town, a floozy on his arm, there only to drive the scent of Marie, the lust for Marie, the desire and love for Marie out of his system for a few more hours, a few more days...hell, a few more years.
If Marie hadn’t been dating that Jack-Frost-jerk-off the day she turned eighteen, Logan knew he would have climbed up a mountain to be the one to lay her bare, to introduce her to the love shared by man and woman. But Logan had waited.
Waited too long.
Marie, like everyone else, had been firmly convinced that Logan desired Jean, only Jean. And after Alcatraz, after his claws had sunk, knuckle deep into the belly-flesh of the woman he called friend, Logan sank deep into despair. The Lake House was his lair, its comforts spartan. Marie was gone, left to take the cure, staying in a dorm at NYU and raising hell like any freshman.
And Logan was alone.
He had counted the days until winter break, longing to see her. But why come home to stay when you could commute from school? Marie wouldn’t come, Logan firmly believed. Marie had new friends, probably lovers...
He had been left behind.
A lot of trees had fallen unexpectedly near the mansion during those nights. A lot of danger room sims had been run until he lay bleeding, exhausted, and utterly spent on the floor. At least he could feel pain.
And then one night, that cold, clear winter break, a light rap on the door of Logan’s refuge, that little, snug bungalow by the lake, changed everything.
He knew that Marie had come to him out of pity. Out of belief that he was letting himself waste away because of Jean. He should have waited...shouldn’t have taken advantage of what a young, sexually inexperienced woman was offering.
But god damn...he hadn’t been strong enough.
He devoured Marie like a banquet, like a starving man. Holding on to her desperately, he kissed her senseless, trying to convey what she could no longer zap out of his head into his emotions, into his actions. His lips dragged across her chin, to her neck, marking her as his own.
Marie was delightfully sensitive, every caress of his calloused fingertips arousing and cajoling her into bliss. He peeled her snow boots off, then the warm woolen jumper and turtle neck. His lips suckled her nipples, nibbling and teasing them into taught peaks straining in the cool air of his bedroom. And oh God...his lips, his tongue, when they delved into her core for the first time it almost rocketed him to orgasm as Marie begged for release.
And when her lips...Marie’s lips, closed around his cock, alternating between sucking, her tongue lapping lazily at him, he roared her name, spurting streams of his seed in her laving mouth. So overcome by lust, he hadn’t even taken a whiff of anything other than her arousal as he slid his bare cock into her, inch by inch.
His rough fingers pressed into her smooth thighs, clenched tightly to her buttocks as her long creamy legs trailed upwards, squeezing into his hip bones. Marie’s muscles clenched him tightly with every thrust, and god, her hair was strewn across his pillows in the moonlight, her scent overwhelmed him, and every time he sank into her Logan felt like his heart was going to rupture from joy.
His mouth was everywhere, nibbling, biting, and caressing Marie’s lips and breasts, his fingers delved between her legs to stroke her into a blinding climax. Her fingers scored down his chest, and he arched back, soundlessly gasping, eyes rolling back into his head as his seed had poured into her womb.
Logan had wondered then if she felt it...the connection, the draw, the absolute intoxication he had with her.
But the morning after, she was gone, and that connection roared into a blazing inferno of fury.
Back to NYU.
Gone.
Two and a half months later Marie came back to the mansion for spring break. He had stalked her once more, following the object of his obsession. She had spoken to Hank privately the moment she had arrived, which worried him.
Was she sick?
The second day of spring break she had left the breakfast room abruptly, hand over her mouth. Logan had instinctively followed her to the teacher’s lounge rest room and banged on the door.
“Marie, let me in dammit!” he had growled, concern and worry evident in his voice as she lost her breakfast in the toilet.
“Go the hell away, Logan!” Marie hissed. He heard the lid to the toilet lifting again -- more retching.
“If you don’t open the goddamn door I’m going to break it down!” the distinctive, uncontrollable urge to rip something into tiny pieces accompanied the ‘snikt’ of his claws sliding out.
“Watch your language!” Marie yelped, and he heard her scrambling for the door.
She opened it, just a crack, her brown eyes staring at him. They were fearful eyes.
“What are you afraid of?” Logan asked, claws sheathing themselves as he pried the door open, stepped inside, and locked it behind him. Her anxiety and fear rolled off of her in waves, mingling with the delicious smell that was distinctly...
Wait.
“What the hell?” Logan whispered, nose sniffing audibly. He dropped to his knees and grasped Marie’s hips, firmly thrusting her back against the pedestal sink. Pushing her knees apart and shoving her skirt up around her hips, Logan sank his nose into her sex, inhaling deeply.
Marie let out something between a gasp and a moan, her fingers entwining in his hair and gripping tightly. Her arousal rolled off of her, but there was something a little, off. Using his teeth, Logan tugged the edge of her thong panties away from her core, and his tongue had tasted what his nose could not identify.
“Holy fucking shit...” Logan snarled, “You’re pregnant.”
Jealousy overwhelmed him momentarily. His fingers had dragged scratches down her thighs. Marie was his, dammit, his, and some other fucker had planted his seed in her womb. The feral side of him wanted to scream.
The wicked side of him wanted to punish.
And Logan had punished. He hadn’t allowed Marie to move, not that she would have. He growled harshly, then ripped her underwear off with his teeth.
“Logan...” Marie had yelped as his teeth closed none to gently on her sensitive bud, as his fingers had fucked her, denying her the pleasure of his cock.
“Tell me who, Marie...so I can kill his ass.”
“I can’t!” Marie whispered, writhing against his mouth.
“Dammit, Marie,” Logan hissed, humming against her, making her squirm on the edge of orgasm, “WHO?!”r32;
“You, Logan.”
Cold terror had washed over him for one second, only to be replaced by mind blowing male pride. He had only been pulled back from the edge of gloating by the tears that streamed down Marie’s cheeks, puddling on the countertop as he stood between her legs.
“Marie, honey, what’s wrong?” Logan asked, hands cupping her face.
“You don’t want me,” Marie sobbed, “You’ve never wanted me, but oh god I wanted you.”
“Marie, baby,” Logan had gulped. His Adam’s apple seemed like it was stuck in his throat. “I’ve only ever wanted you.”
The mile markers flew by as the clock on the van dashboard lazily snuck towards 3AM. Each mile brought him physically closer to Marie, and mentally brought him closer to agonizing heartbreak.
Logan, old fashioned as he was, had bought an antique ring for Marie from an estate sale. It had belonged to a couple that had been married for sixty-five years before they had died in their sleep, together.
He smiled as he remembered her face. She’d been wearing the yellow dress from the photo in his house. God she had looked so beautiful, her hair wavy and curling, her face flush with the glow of pregnancy. She had managed to persuade her professors to let her continue her classes at NYU online, and the weeks following that first day of March had involved the most intense love-making Logan had ever been privileged to be a part of.
And God, what a privilege.
Marie stood on the porch, drinking a cup of herbal tea in the waning sunlight. Crickets and cicadas chirruped in the woods, and the waves of the lake lapped against the pebble strewn shoreline. The baby’s nursery, constructed out of the small office area Logan had allowed himself in the lake house, had been painted a brilliant yellow and pastel green with clouds and dragons earlier in the afternoon. Now, a bassinet and a changing table made out of white bead board, constructed by Logan himself, adorned the quiet corner.
Marie found a rocking chair in a refurbished furniture store, and was currently trying out its comfort suitability as compared to the hammock. Logan leaned, content to watch her, against the door frame.
“Baby,” he murmured, desire thick in his voice.
She turned to look at him, her smile so brilliant it took his breath away. “It’s a perfect fit, sugar. I love the cushion too!” she winked at him in a sultry fashion, and he growled in response.
He stalked out onto the porch and settled himself between her legs. Her fingers crawled along his scalp and he groaned in delight, his toes curling pleasurably.
“You, know, Marie,” Logan purred, his hands working away the kinks in her bare feet, “There’s only one thing in this world that could make me happier right now.”r32;
“And that is?” Marie prodded, teasing his ear with her fingernail.
He turned, lifted himself from his sitting position and knelt on one knee, pulling the worn velvet box out of his jacket pocket and opening it, the ring shining, no a glimmering symbol of his promise to cherish her.
“Marie, let me make you an honest woman.”
Their wedding had been a quiet summer affair. Jubilee had been Marie’s maid of honor, Kitty had been her other bridesmaid. Marie’s dress looked like something out of fairy princess land, and its empire waisted cut cleverly hid her baby bump in swathes of white tulle.
She had cried as they exchanged their vows, he had kissed her sweetly, gently...everything after that streamed into a whirlwind of activity. Their honeymoon cruise to Alaska had only resulted in one nasty incident involving the claws. Who knew Mystique like to moonlight as a cabaret singer on cruise ships?
The last trimester of Marie’s pregnancy resulted in some of the most awesome sex Logan had ever experienced in his over one hundred years of existence. Even though he couldn’t remember sex from before twenty years ago, he was sure absolutely nothing could compare to Marie. And then, as the first leaves began to fall in September, Xavier James Logan arrived.
“Push, Marie, you’re almost there.” Hank encouraged.
Logan tried not to be physically sick from nervousness as Marie clenched his hand. If his bones hadn’t been adamantium, he was sure something would have cracked under the strain. Marie breathed heavily, attempting to practice her lamaze lessons. Logan wiped her forehead with a cool cloth, laying a kiss there as she strained.
“The baby is crowning! Logan, look!” Hank had exclaimed excitedly.
Logan’s heart had leapt into his chest at the first glimpse of his son, dark brown hair matted to his tiny head.
“One more push, baby.” Logan cheered, kissing Marie’s hand, “Our baby is almost here!”
“Oh, God, Logan!” Marie had ground out between clenched teeth, and had pushed.
The sound of a baby crying had never been more beautiful.
“I love you, Marie.” Logan whispered.
Charlie, as little Xavier soon came to be called, was the most unusual baby Hank had ever observed medically. Unlike his super powered, alpha class mutant parents, Charlie possessed only a recessive mutant gene. It was unlikely, Logan recalled, that the boy would ever possess any mutant powers.
Logan had only wondered who the hell cared. Every morning he made love to the woman of his dreams, held his son, and cherished the life he was rebuilding from the ashes of Alcatraz island.
“Come on, you can do it!” Marie cheered, holding her hands out to Charlie as Logan lifted tiny hands, each clasped on to an adamantium finger, helping his son toddle towards his mother.
Finally, Logan withdrew his fingers gently. Charlie toddled one step, two steps, and then three steps into his mother’s waiting arms. “Hooray!” Marie squealed, dancing Charlie around the room. The baby boy laughed, clapping his hands.
“Come to papa, big guy!” Logan crowed, lifting the exultant one year old over his head. Baby laughter filled the lake house. Logan was already drawing up plans to have it extended, Charlie would need his own room should another happy accident occur.
As Logan merged onto the interstate, disregarding his original plans to pull over and rest, his mind wandered again. When Charlie was three years old, Marie took him to the local park to play. Logan’s heart beat accelerated at the memory. Charlie had fallen down while getting off the toddler sized slide.
He had bumped his shin. Marie thought nothing of it.
Until three weeks later, the bruise hadn’t healed.
“Marie, Logan,” Hank murmured, as he stepped out of the room where Charlie lay sleeping on a sterile hospital bed with his favorite stuffed giraffe, “Charlie has leukemia.”
Logan’s heart felt like it was breaking into a thousand, tiny, infinitesimal pieces. Marie had sobbed for hours, unable to pull herself away from Logan’s embrace. She didn’t want Charlie to see her so upset.
He wouldn’t understand.
The season had turned to summer as Charlie approached his fourth birthday. Now, doctor’s appointments replaced play time at the park or with Daddy. Luckily, the mansion had the best, state of the art medical facilities available.
But nothing seemed to help Charlie. His hair fell out, and Logan shaved his head every day, despite rapid regrowth, to match. The two compadres played Mario Kart, ate pizza, and played Chutes and Ladders with Marie, who smiled through her sadness at her boys, one big, the other, little.
Mommy kissed away the boo-boos, the incisions, and the hurts. But Mommy couldn’t kiss away the cancer.
Charlie died in August during a bone marrow transplant.
Logan and Marie buried their son, buried their happiness, two weeks before his fourth birthday. Logan had already bought him a battery powered motorcycle. The gifts sat, gathering dust in the corner of Charlie’s room, waiting on Charlie’s “big-boy bed,” for someone to open and love them.
But that someone would never come.
Logan ground his teeth together in grief, forcing himself to pull off the road and into the nearest rest stop. The van needed gas. He couldn’t see where he was driving anymore. Heartbreaking, soul wrenching sobs tore from his gut. Dry heaves accompanied them.
It was all he could do to not remember Charlie’s face, angelic, pale as they closed his casket at the earth swallowed him. Why did it have to be him? He who healed from anything, would have given every ounce of healing power he had to Charlie.
But he couldn’t.
Helplessness overwhelmed him, and locking the doors, Logan cut the engine. He was too bereaved to drive any farther without rest. Even his dreams haunted him.
Marie sat, naked on the side of the bed, a sheet pooled around her trim waist. She was only 22. Far too young to be dealing with the loss of her only child. Logan stared at the ceiling, biting his lip. Marie was crying again.
Logan wanted to roar at the sky in defiance, to cleave the earth in two pieces. Hank told him that Marie would need time to heal. Marie, his Marie, was gone. Locked up and hiding from him. She wouldn’t speak to him. Some part of her, he knew, resented him for being unable to pass his miraculous healing ability onto their child.
The other part of her hated herself for thinking that even suppressed by the cure, her mutation might have absorbed any chance of Charlie’s survival, might have absorbed his mutation in the womb.
“Marie,” Logan whispered, “I don’t want to lose you.”
She turned, her face profiled in the moonlight, hair caressing her back, trailing down towards her buttocks. He could see the rivulets tears had left on her cheeks.
“Oh God, Logan.” Marie wailed, and she had collapsed, crawling into his arms where her heartbreaking sobs were swallowed in his desperate kisses. His strong arms gripped her tightly, fingertips caressed the skin he now knew so well. And he had claimed her again in a violent, passionate, sorrowful lovemaking that left him unable to move, and Marie exhausted of all her grief and fury beside him.
The next morning, she had disappeared. The only thing she left was a note.
Logan,
Sugar, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. I’ve been ripped in two pieces, and no matter how hard you try, you’ll never be able to fix me. Please don’t try to find me.
Love always,
Marie
Logan shook himself awake and wiped dried tears and snot from his face. God he was such a pansy. You’d think the mighty Wolverine, the seen it all, done it all Wolverine who had slaughtered thousands in battle after battle, who would rip an opponent limb from limb to protect what was his own, would have been able to get over heartbreak, especially five years after the death of his son and the loss of his wife.
But some wounds couldn’t be healed by time.
The miles faded away until Logan reached the hospital where Marie was staying. He parked the van, then walked to the front desk. Emotions warred inside him. The Wolverine wanted to punish their mate for leaving. They could have provided another cub for her to love...
Logan, on the other hand, wanted to kiss her senseless. Wanted to prove to her that she was still welcome. She was only twenty-seven now, they could still have a long, full life together. He stopped by the gift shop and picked up a bouquet of roses and a Snickers. Marie loved Snickers.
The nurse at the front desk had told him where Marie was, what room she was in, what floor she was on. His heart pounded so hard in his chest that he felt like he was going to explode. The ding of the elevator as it approached the tenth floor was ominous and foreboding. The doors opened, Logan stepped out and followed the signs until Room 1087 loomed in his vision.
His hand reached for the doorknob. The Wolverine growled.
Logan pushed him back, reached out, and opened the door.
Sometimes, wounds needed to be overcome.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
A/N: In which the author explains a lot of the angst. This should be a fairly long chapter.
Another shot of whiskey can't stop looking at the door
Wishing you'd come sweeping in the way you did before
And I wonder if I ever cross your mind
To me it happens all the time
Another shot of whiskey can't stop looking at the door
Wishing you'd come sweeping in the way you did before
And I wonder if I ever cross your mind
To me it happens all the time
Chapter End Notes:
Please let me know what you think! :)