Disclaimer: This fan fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended.

So, her inner pain-in-the-ass rumbled, I’m your Logan.

He’d been at this since they left Manhattan. Ever since they’d agreed to head for Nevada despite all three women’s misgivings, since it was the only lead they had. Not a thought about this Forge person, not a worry about what Tony Stark obviously wasn’t telling them about his flesh-and-blood counterpart’s disappearance. Hell no: All Logan cared about was her minor slip of the tongue- it’s such a nimble tongue, darlin’- and the fact that she’d let her temper take over for the second time that day. It was annoying as fuck: Marie was strongly considering just letting him die in whatever Hell-hole he’d gotten himself tossed into but if she did that his ghost would probably fucking haunt her. So-

“No,” she said primly, (for the tenth time) “you’re mah assignment.”

Your assignment who’s also your Logan.

“Assignment!”

Logan! Yours! She heard his gravel-crunched laugh. You know this kinda denial ain’t healthy sweetheart. There ain’t no shame here-

“Clearly.”

Aw, you don’t really mean that- And before you say anything, I think you look great in the suit.

And he went back to grinning smugly in her head, having said the one thing that he knew would stop their argument. Despite herself Marie blushed, brushing her hand across the black leather uniform, staring in her mirror at a reflection she hadn’t seen in two years. An X-Man stared back at her, her stripes vivid and white against all the black, her stance confident and lithe. Outside she knew Jubie and Kit were saying goodbye to their respective boys before they took the Blackbird to Nevada: In fact, if she listened carefully, she was pretty certain she could hear Ju-Ju Bean and Remy tongue-wrestling from here. Her green satchel was sitting on the bed beside her, stuffed with everything a woman might need for a road-trip, just like it’d been the last time she left the Mansion. Except that time she’d been swearing that she’d never return-

Whereas this time she was praying she would.

“Going somewhere?” Callum asked behind her then. He had his arms crossed, his expression pained. Her inner Logan began crooning I’m A Little Teapot! soon as he saw him. It was almost as annoying as when he sang it in her head during sex.

Almost.

Marie blushed again. “Mah… friend Logan’s in trouble,” she told him. Ignoring her snickering inner Wolverine who didn’t think friend was an apt description of their relationship. Mentally she flipped him the finger. “Me’n the girls are gonna go get him,” she was explaining. “Gonna be away for a couple o’ days-”

“And you have t’do this, why?”

Yeah Marie, her inner Wolverine growled smugly, You have to do this why? Mentally she rolled her eyes- at both of them. “When mah mutation kicked in,” she explained patiently, “Ah had to leave home. Mah parents kicked me out-”

“You told me that.”

“What Ah didn’t tell you was how Ah ended up in this place.” She forced herself to look at him. His expression was best described as wary- With an extra dollop of judgemental. “A man picked me up when Ah was on the road, Cal,” she continued, ignoring the dollop. “That man was Logan.”

“What was he, a social worker?”

She couldn’t help her small laugh, even though it seemed to piss her boyfriend off more. “Ah’ve heard him called a lotta things,” she muttered, “But social worker is a first. No, he was a cage-fighter, King o’ the Ring from here to Anchorage. He took me in-”

“Took you in?” Callum’s eyes narrowed like he was looking at something real unpleasant and wondering whether it was gonna bite his ass. Instantly her inner Logan started growling.

I don’t like the way that asshole’s looking at you, darlin’, he rumbled.

Truth be told Marie didn’t like it either, but she wouldn’t give Wolverine the satisfaction of saying it out loud.

“What do you mean, he took you in, Marie?” Callum repeated. His expression had turned… sour. “What would a man like that want with a sixteen year old girl?”

She shrugged. “He was a mutant too, and he was lonely. We were- Ah don’t know. Ya might say we were kindred spirits.” And she looked away, tugging at her glove, awkward because she knew there was far more to it than that.

Callum’s snort was patronising. “A teenaged girl and a cage fighter were kindred spirits?”

“We were a Rogue and a Wolverine,” she corrected softly. “Besides, strays attract strays-”

“And you were his stray, were you?” Callum’s tone wasn’t even remotely friendly anymore, it was accusing. “That’s what they’re calling it these days? Jesus Marie, if the bastard took advantage of you when you were under-age then why the Hell are you chasing him now?”

Say what-the-fuck? her inner Wolverine snarled.

“Say what-the-fuck?” Marie repeated.

Though for once she actually sounded scarier.

“Please!” Callum snapped. “Strays attract strays? Did you think I didn’t know what kind of life you had, Marie? Did you think I hadn’t guessed that you’d done more than one unpleasant thing to survive? I know the kind of woman you are-” he wrinkled his nose disdainfully, gesturing to the leather suit, “And I wasn’t born yesterday, the sort of man who picks up a teenage runaway at the side of the road isn’t looking for a pet stray-”

Instantly she was in his face.

It was just like today with Stark only worse. More enraging. The self-righteousness he was spouting made her wish she had her own set of claws. “Listen here, bub,” she bit out. “And listen good. Ah might have had mah differences with Logan, but you do not talk that sorta shit about him, you understand me?” He made to interrupt and she spoke over him with nary a pause. “He never took advantage of me. He saved me, saved me more times than Ah can count. He took care o’ me. Not the when-will-you-be-home? Shit you spout, the real fucking deal. When it matters.” Memories flashed unbidden through her mind, Logan smiling proudly at her grease-stained self the first time she successfully put the Blackbird engine back together after a mission. Hazel eyes peering down into hers when she found out that Professor Xavier had died, holding her tight as she cried. His big heavy hands on her hips their first night together, a sky-ful of stars behind him as he pressed her back against the grass and told her she was his and he loved her, lethal skin or no. A whole lifetime’s worth of memories were flooding through her head and suddenly she felt her heart kick into life for the first time in two years, adrenaline and passion and plain old love flooding her system fit to overload it. Overwhelming because she hadn’t let herself feel it in so long-

And then-

Red hair against her- their-sheets. Two bodies tangled up like damp thread, slick with sweat. A dead woman’s name echoing through their room as Marie watched and Logan- Logan-

Instantly Marie shut her heart down. Set it to numb. She felt sudden tears prick her eyes but she held them back: She wouldn’t remember that. She couldn’t. Not now, not in this room. Not with the man she- she… loved in front of her.

A beat.

“Ah think Ah should go,” she said then. Stepped away from Callum, let go of him. Forced the pain tearing through her chest back inside its box. She wouldn’t dwell on that, she refused to. She didn’t want to remember how Logan had broken her heart. Besides her current boyfriend was staring at her like she’d grown another head and she had a Wolverine to save- Even if she hated his guts now. Her heart would have to wait.

But Callum was still making with the judging. “If you go,” he was muttering, “Don’t bother coming back.”

“You don’t mean that.” And she knew he didn’t. Breaking up with her would require more spine than Callum possessed.

“I do! I swear, if you go chasing after that dirty old pervert I’ll walk on you-”

But she just shifted the bag onto her shoulder. Pulled the zipper shut and made to go. She saw her reflection in the glass behind him once again but this time all she recognised was her tiredness. Her pinched, closed look.

You’ve been wearing it fer two years darlin’, her inner Wolverine growled. You should do.

Whose fucking fault is that?

For once he didn’t answer back.

“Ah should be back in a few days,” she told Callum then, ignoring his threat. “If ya want anything just ask Remy. You wanna borrow a car, just ask Storm.” And she turned her back on him, shutting the door behind her. Trying to tell herself there weren’t still tears in her eyes as she leaned, just for a second, against the wood before moving off. She stalked through the Mansion with the fuck-you aplomb of Magneto on a bad day, got on board the Blackbird and took her up. Kitty and Jubes took one look at her expression and left her at the controls without another word. Just began suiting up and checking their weaponry, Jubes calling ahead to her contact on the ground in Nevada and asking her to set up a cover-story. Marie focussed on the jet, on her flight-plan, on everything except the big lump of numbness in her chest-

Her inner Wolverine didn’t make a peep for the rest of the night.