Far Far Away
“MY CAR, VICTOR! MY FUCKING CAR!”
Logan groaned, eyelids fluttering open, four people, two Maries and two Victors, stared down at him. The Marie’s were raging loud enough to wake the dead.
“Whuzzgoingon?” Logan rasped, “Why the hell do you each have id… indentical twins?”
“That’s just GREAT, just GREAT, Vicky!” the two Marie’s shouted at exactly the same time, “You just mind-body-fucked a drifter through the roof of my CAR!”
“Calm down, sheesh,” the Victor’s rumbled, “He’ll heal soon enough.”
“BUT MY CAR WON’T, VICKY!”
“Two Maries are twice as loud as one Marie,” Logan snorted, rubbing his temples wearily, then rubbed his head against the leather back seat, mumbling, “Upholstery is comfortable.”
“I HOPE YOU SUFFOCATE IN IT!” Marie-times-two shrieked, incensed. Several metal objects rained down on Logan’s exposed face as she stormed off, throwing anything she could reach in his general area. Most unfortunately, the ubiquitous wrench slammed into his groin. Gasping in agony, Logan rolled into a fetal position, two tears slipping out of the corners of his eyes, carving paths of clean skin through accumulated layers of red Martian dust.
“Smooth move, puppy,” Victor growled. The feral, hair shorn short and rather comely looking for the first time Logan could recall, and his twin, reached into the jagged hole and lifted him out by his jacket. Logan wasn’t sure exactly which end was up. Victor swung him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, then settled him sloppily onto a folding metal chair where the Wolverine curled into a fetal position protecting his throbbing manhood.
The massive feral squatted back onto his heels to contemplate the piteous heap that was hunkered down in front of him. “I climb up here expecting Jimbo to be harassing Marie, and I find you of all people, I mean, I thought we lived in a freaking galaxy. What the fuck are you doing on Mars?”
“Hurting,” Logan gasped out, one powerfully strong hand clutching the edge of the chair for support.
“Healing factor will take care of it,” Victor huffed, nonchalantly.
“Takes twice as long for your balls, you know that,” Logan growled.
“Put on your big girl panties, will ya puppy?” snapped Victor, “You sound like a little bitch.”
“Fuck you, Victor” Logan spat.
Victor chuckled, stood up, and walked over to a cold fusion box that hummed with blue light. It let out a large bang as he opened the door, two battered bottles of beer sat in the side of the door.
Turning around, he handed one bottle to Logan, then twisted the cap off of his beer using his teeth. Spitting the corrugated metal to the side, Victor took a swig, then said, “What’s it been, Wolverine, twenty years since I last saw your sorry ass? Why aren’t you dead yet?”
“Same reason you’re not dead, I suppose,” Logan managed to wheeze. The pain emanating from his crotch had died down to a dull roar. Victor actually had one head now instead of two.
“Why are you on Mars, then?” Victor asked once more, his long fingernails scratching his short hair leisurely as he relaxed down onto the cold cement tile floor.
“Looking for her, obviously,” Logan snorted, gesturing towards the forcefield bars blocking the arched doorway that led into the pod-garage’s living quarters where Marie had disappeared, “Destiny said she’d be back around sometime, can’t live without her, you know.”
“Seems to me you’ve been doing mighty fine for the past century,” Victor mused, quietly.
“If you like living in hell, yeah, sure,” Logan ground out, as calmly as possible. He’d forgotten how much Victor grated on his nerves, “Why are you on Mars?”
“I dunno, got an itch, Earth’s not what it used to be,” Victor’s claws scratched gratingly against the roughed concrete, “Met Bess.”
Logan cocked his head at Victor - damn, his head was still swimming, the feral had split back into two - one eyebrow raising in an interested fashion, “You love her?”
Victor blushed.
Logan spat out his beer in surprise.
“No fucking way,” Logan hooted, jubilant, “Sabretooth! Whipped!”
“Look at the droid calling the mech silver,” Victor huffed, finishing his beer, “Call me crazy, but I think Marie whipped your ass back in 1999.”
“Yeah, but I’m not a sociopath,” Logan snarked. Victor reached out a clawed hand to the seated man, Logan took it.
Victor jerked him forward with lightning speed, then let go. Logan crashed into a table full of tools head first, metal falling around him in an earsplitting roar.
“WHAT WAS THAT?!” Marie’s voice shrieked, faintly from inside the house.
“Have fun, puppy,” Victor said with a grin. He didn’t offer to pull Logan from underneath the metal tool bureau, “I’ve watched out for her these last two decades, now it’s your turn.”
“You’re just going to leave me here with her?” Logan quipped. A trickle of blood slid from his forehead to his mouth, “You’re fucking mean.”
“Eh, she’s not my problem anymore,” Victor said with a grin. The floor vibrated. Marie was coming towards them, and she wasn’t walking calmly.
Oh no, she was stomping.
Turning and walking towards the entrance, Victor paused, “Oh, and puppy? Her powers aren’t the same...be careful.” He waved two fingers at Logan, then casually disappeared around the corner. Logan could hear him clanking down the escaladder.
The hum of the forcefield door that led to the living chambers sliding open made him feebly stir. He didn’t want to be unable to defend himself this time. That wrench was heavy.
Crawling out from underneath the rubble, Logan clambered back towards the chair, seating himself sloppily. Sure enough, when his vision had cleared enough, Marie was standing directly in front of him.
With the wrench.
“Mister,” she hissed, “You have some explaining to do.”
“God, you’re more beautiful than I remember,” Logan blurted out. Damn, he had absolutely no couth.
“Don’t you try to sweet talk me, Chester,” Marie growled. The wrench poked him forcefully in the chest.
“Chester?” Logan asked. He reached around the edge of the chair for his beer, found it, then brought it up to his lips.
“The Molester, of course!” she yelped, “You come in here with your shitter of a power cell asking for a tune up for the piece of junk demon cycle parked across the street, and then you feel me up?! That constitutes you as a Chester, thank you very much!”
“I’m just, jeez, let me,” Logan stammered.
“Let you what?” Marie yelled. She had a streak of grease from her chin to forehead. Logan couldn’t help thinking it was amazingly cute, “You’ve already fucked up my car! You know how long it took me to find and import that thing? Now it’s totaled!”
“Totaled?” Logan turned and glanced at the car. Sure the frame had gotten bent and the cloth top was beyond repair, but the bones of the car were still in good shape, “I can fix that in no time.”
“Oh please, where are you going to get the parts? Despite the fact that this looks like some sort of junk grotto, nothing in here is really older than 2100.”
“I am,” he growled.
“Oh please, and when were you born then? You don’t look a day over thirty,” Marie huffed, but her eyes were gentle, hot. Logan missed that look.
God he wanted her.
“1880, give or take,” Logan said, wincing at the shock in her eyes.
“That’s impossible,” Marie said, “You’d have to be a mutant, at the least.”
“Well, there you go,” Logan reached around his neck and snapped off the dog tags that hung there, then passed them to her, “Codename, Wolverine.” He couldn’t help but notice her bare fingertips touching his own without care.
She wasn’t the same Marie.
But she was still Marie, he was certain of it. Destiny had said she would come again.
“I’m a mutant, too,” Marie murmured softly, fingertips tracing the metal with familiarity, “I’m a sensory-technopath.”
That explained the mechanics shop. Any sensory propelled techno-path generally had an insatiable need to work around technology. No wonder she had imported the car, possibly buying it on the black market, she was naturally obsessed with tinkering.
“Let me help you fix your car - I promise I can get you the parts that I need,” Logan offered.
“Where from? Not a techno-heap on Mars that could get me pieces to this baby without a blood-price,” Marie snorted.
“Darlin’, I’ve got plenty of money,” he replied, running his hand through his messy and dusty hair.
“Mars currency ain’t worth shit these days,” Marie warned, “You’re not gonna pull the wool over my eyes, Mister Wolverine.”
“Call me Logan, and trust me, it’s Earth creds. I can get what you need.”
“And how does someone like you,” she looked him up and down, scrutinizing his look, “Driving a beat-to-shit cycle with barely enough fuel to get from Beta to Gamma, looking like he doesn’t have two nickels to rub together, have enough creds to buy me pieces to a car worth it’s weight in gold?”
“I’m the best at what I do,” Logan shrugged, “But what I do isn’t very nice.”
“You sound like Victor,” Marie replied. She yanked a rubber band off a nearby table and pulled her hair into a messy bun. It had fallen into a tangle around her shoulders earlier.
“You don’t say, Marie, you don’t say,” Logan laughed.
“Alright, I’ll let you fix the car, but you’re paying for it.” The wrench poked Logan forcefully in the chest once more, “Got it?”
“Crystal fucking clear,” Logan replied, dead serious.
“Before we get started using up your supposed massive amount of creds, I want you to answer a question,” she said, wrench still poking into his firm chest. His balls twinged in faux pain at the sensation.
“I’ll answer,” he replied.
“How do you know who I am? Why did you go after me like that earlier?”
Logan didn’t answer, just reached into the inside, hidden pocket of his jacket. Inside, a gently folded, worn flap of paper sat, warmed by being next to his body. Gingerly, he peeled the folded paper back, then handed it to Marie.
“What is this?” she asked, touching it with reverence.
“It’s a photograph, before holographic technology, this is how we saved visual memory.”
Marie frowned, her eyebrows furrowing as she looked closer at the photograph, “When was this taken?” she asked, her voice edgy.
“2012,” Logan replied, “We’d just gotten back from vacation.”
Her finger traced the face of the brunette standing next to the man in front of her, who was beaming with male pride, they had wedding rings on. She looked at the stubborn chin, the soft eyes, the freckles.
The only difference was the two white streaks falling into the woman’s face.
“Wolverine,” she asked, gently sinking down towards the floor, “Why am I in your picture?”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
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