Chapter 10: Then
“I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded in hatred
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.”
–Bob Dylan
I get it now.
Do you?
Yeah, it makes sense. You did what you had to do. What other choice was there?
I guess so.
This Henry or whatever the fuck his name is is a real pain in the fucking ass though, even if you do have him on lock down.
Tell me about it.
I think I might have to go and punch the shit out of that fucker. You know, mentally speakin’.
Logan?
Yeah?
I’m glad your back with me. You were almost gone, you know, from before.
You know it ain’t real, kid.
I know.
The real thing’s around though, if you’re interested.
He’s not gonna understand. Particularly now.
He doesn’t know the whole story yet, that’s all. He’ll come ‘round. I mean, when you tell him he’s gonna flip his shit, but he’s always been on your side. And, believe me, he’s way more concerned about all his memories and crap you’re gonna have to sift through.
Been there, done that.
But now you got decades of ‘em. It’s different. And he’s always been sort of a paranoid asshole about that shit.
Heh. You’re right. ….Logan?
Yeah?
Keep me company for a while?
Always, darlin’.
--
The candle burned downed to the holder in the window, the sun hanging low in the sky. Outside, the dirt floor of the cabin. A couple of the children hung about on a muddy porch, all of them dirty and mostly unclothed. Not keeping track of the time and instead keeping track of the enemy’s scent, he had wandered, strayed too far. Upon looking up, he had seen them, realizing his mistake. The children swarmed him, filthy hands fishing. Kids around these parts knew that sometimes Union soldiers still had provisions on their person, even this far south.
“Mister! Mister! Ya got food? Ya got food?” He tried to slough them off when he looked up and saw a woman, maybe their mother, maybe not. She was haggard and skeletally thin, most of her teeth missing.
“We ain’t got nothin’ for you to take,” she said. His eyes shot over to the empty pig sties on the side of the house, last summer’s garden dried up with the cold snap.
“Wasn’t looking for anything, ma’am,” he said. “Just got turned around tryin’ to find my way home.”
“You get along then,” her voice wavered, and he realized she was angry, but mostly afraid. Too many soldiers had their way with women like this, sometimes while the kids watched. A hard fucking fact of war. “Get back up north and rid us of the likes of you.”
“Ma’am, I-”
“Go now! Leave us be.” She stared up at him with hard, hateful eyes. Empty eyes.
You heard me.
Leave.
Logan awoke with a hard gasp, choking on air as he shot up in bed, looking around wildly. It was the clearest fucking memory from that far back he’d ever had, and his world was now spinning, everything blurring in and out of focus.
“Easy does it,” he heard a woman’s voice say, and he looked up to see a calm face and white hair.
“Storm?” he said, confused again on the where and the when and the how.
“What year?!” he growled, and, at that, her look grew more concerned.
“Logan…”
“Year!”
“2015,” she said quietly. As he finally got a hold of his breath, he calmed, and the haze slowly lifted. He was steadily realizing it really was Storm and they were in a med bay, of sorts. It looked shockingly like—was it?—but no, it couldn’t be. It was similar, but wrong.
“Where?” he finally croaked, as a new shot of pain once more radiated down his right arm. Rogue.
“An underground military bunker in Canada, like we had planned,” Storm murmured, still looking at him with extreme caution. As his mind slogged through the details, the memories, the scene of Cape Town burning before his very eyes came back to him. Plumes of yellow smoke and gunshots ringing in the air, and her small body convulsing as she struggled to breathe. Marie.
“Where is she, Storm?” he asked as he tried to swing his legs around, intent to get off the bed. A wave a nausea instantly overtook him.
“Logan,” she stammered.
“Is she alright?”
“She’s fine. Woke up hours ago. She’s with Charles, now. Probably trying to… work through some of it.” Logan winced at that.
“Fuck. How did they apprehend us?” he heard himself asking.
“Logan, how about you just take it easy for one second and-”
“Storm!” he growled.
“The Mark X’s new design,” she said, eyes troubled and haunted by god knows what she had seen. “They can track mutants from continents away now. They figured out we were all gathered together, and that was enough for them.”
“Those fuckers were killing everyone, even men on their own side.”
“I know.” Logan finally looked Storm in the eye, properly seeing her for the first time.
“Everyone else ok?” he muttered.
“Yes. Thank God for Blink. I met her at the rendezvous point about a day before the attack. I’m not sure ...” Storm began.
“We would’ve died,” Logan said flatly. “Or, at least, Rogue…” he stopped again, falling silent. He didn’t need to finish. They both knew that they had been, once again, dangerously close to the worst.
---
The place even fucking smelled like Alkali. Upon arriving in the underground compound military barracks in northern Alberta, Erik had taken the Blackbird back south to look for other remaining mutants. Now they were stranded here, Storm, Charles, Blink, Logan and Rogue, with a handful of other mutants Logan didn’t know the names of that kept the compound operational. On the surface, the place was impossible to find without coordinates, and this far into the Canadian Rockies, considerably hard to track. To find them here would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Once more, Charles had done his homework.
Regardless, however, Logan quietly cursed himself for suggesting that they make base camp this far north for the winter. Despite it being considerably bigger than the bunker in Mexico, it was significantly more haunting. The place was a dank, antiquated military compound Logan assumed had been built from the earlier days of the Cold War, and it might as well have been Alkali’s twin sister. There were medical labs in it for one, and Logan shuddered to know for what purpose they had originally been for. They mostly remained blocked off, but the bedrooms were no better, cold and dimly lit like the rest. It was a maze of low lighting and concrete walls and dusty glass. Steel beds with factory-grade bedding, a couple of communal showers with only cold water. He felt like a fucking lab rat in here.
But they had just been victims of a vicious attack, a world-wide coordinated initiative to finally engage with and reprimand any mutants’ rights groups they had considered a threat with their newly-minted Mark X’s. Logan was steadily realizing how lucky they had been to survive. Without Blink, without the Blackbird and its freshly installed upgrades. If Storm had been a day later or even Blink had lingered a couple seconds longer…Logan once more shut down that line of thinking. After talking a bit more with Storm, she had led him in the direction of his room and the men’s shower.
After showering, Logan saw that he had been supplied with basic military-style uniforms and sweats. All of their personal belongings, what little they owned, had been left back in Cape Town, and, not for the first time, Logan pondered about how easy it really was to strip away a person’s humanity. Take away all that defines them, and see how they writhe.
After dressing and pacing around the place, he finally was reminded of what he had tried carefully not to think of. Charles’ thoughts was alight in his head once more, and instead of feeling threatened by the invasion, he felt relieved by the presence of the Professor’s voice, calm and bright, in his mind.
Logan. Rogue is done meeting with me for the moment and is willing to talk, if you feel comfortable doing so.
--
By the time he found her, she was already back in her room. The bedrooms were identical, and she was seated on the same industrial steel bed. A large sweatshirt adorned her small frame, but he noticed her legs were bare, one idly hanging off the edge of the mattress, while she held a steaming mug of coffee in one hand and a map of something in another. She was supposed to be looking at it, he assumed, but instead her gaze was fixed on a random spot on the floor, and she was lost in thought. She seemed to be far off, but, at least, as far as he could tell, there were no insidious symptoms. No snarling, no prowling. None of the things his mind had cooked up in him to fear.
“Hey,” he muttered, leaning on the door frame, almost as if they were back at Xavier’s and he was idly popping by to say hello before a class of hers. She looked up at him, a small smile on her face, and the echo of the thought was gone.
“Hey yourself,” she murmured.
“So, what kinda trouble have you been up to?” he asked.
“The usual kind,” she murmured again, the same small and sad smile. Logan sighed.
“I’m sorry, Rogue,” he said, breathing out. No fucking reason to dance around the subject like a fucking prancing bear.
“It’s fine, Logan. You saved me.” She said this matter-of-factly, without a hint of melodrama. Smart woman. She knew the truth damn well enough for what it was.
“So…no cursing, no growling, no feral-like instincts?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light, but the fear behind his guesses suddenly feeling very real.
“Oh, I wouldn’t necessarily say that,” she teased a little, while he inwardly, and outwardly, cursed.
“Fuck,” he offered, crossing his arms and shifting on his feet a little.
“I’m just…” she paused, stretching her neck a little as she did so, “letting the senses happen to me, for now. Although, I gotta say, it’s awful to smell every single thing in the air, especially in this place. After I came to, I almost lost my lunch. I’d forgotten what that’s like, to be so aware of it all…” she paused, a little lost, before looking at him. Logan just stalled, unsure of what to say, unsure how to make it better.
“Glad to see I didn’t kill you,” she added after a little time, a darker look overtaking her features.
“Gonna take more than a little shock from you to do that. Besides, I knew what I was gettin’ myself into,” Logan remarked.
“You shouldn’t have had to in first place,” Marie said, putting down her coffee.
“Baby...” he said, without thinking, striding into the room a bit further before stopping. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, suddenly hesitant of what to do with his body. It wasn’t a very fucking familiar feeling for the Wolverine.
“It’s fine… it really is, Logan. Yeah, some of it’s confusing, but some of it’s…nice.”
Logan’s eyebrows shot up at this. “Nice?”
“Things had faded since last time. You’re back now,” she said, probably more to herself than anyone else.
“I’m not sure I wanna know what that means,” he grumbled.
“Let’s just say you’re still there to keep me company when you’re not around.” Logan swallowed hard, wholly disturbed by the notion.
“Jesus, Marie. I never knew it was like that. I thought it was just an influx of memories and thoughts and powers and shit.” While most of him was deeply disturbed by what she was saying, another part of him noted they had never, ever talked this candidly about what had happened between them when she took him in. Logan idly wondered if it was simply a symptom of the last few weeks and them getting to know each other once more, or if there was something else in the recipe to her candor that he should have been picking up on.
“It is all that, too…but…it’s layered. Complicated, but not all bad.”
“Having me up there has got to be a bad thing,” Logan muttered. Marie only shrugged her shoulders, unmoved by his self-pity.
“It’s like that with everybody. I’ve been dealing with this for a long time, Logan. I’m not perfect at handling it, but I’m better than I used to be, particularly with Charles around to help. I have a way of... containing them all… if necessary. But you’re sorta fun to have around.” At this, her smile returned.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked bluntly.
Rogue smiled a little, offering him a knowing look, but said nothing.
“Fuck. Now I’m competing with myself.”
“You’re not competing with anyone…although… he does want me to tell you he thinks you need to get over your fucking self,” she said, through another grin. Logan’s frown only deepened.
“His words, not mine,” she clarified again a bit through the joke, but on realizing his mood was still somber, her face grew a little more serious.
“What about the rest?” he asked quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“You know. The rest...” Logan trailed off.
“I haven’t gotten that far. Those things are… still a little overwhelming. Charles is gonna help with that.” Logan once more bristled at the thought of Marie going anywhere near the memories he had collected in the years they had been apart.
“You can’t just… lock it all away somewhere? Forget about them and throw away the key?” he asked.
“No keys, no doors,” Marie said shaking her head. “It’s more like... a cloud in my mind when it’s new. And I can’t really see the world clearly again unless I walk through it.”
“Shit,” Logan sighed. Marie seemed to finally read his grieved expression, and settled for a change of subject.
“So this place is pretty miserable, isnt’ it?” Marie looked over to the nearest concrete wall. “Wouldn’t be my choice for a paint color, that’s for sure.”
“It ain’t great,” Logan agreed. “But at least we’ll be doing more than ‘sittin’ pretty’ it seems. Did they tell you about the extractions yet?”
“Extractions?” Marie asked, suddenly curious. “Charles didn’t mention those.”
“Yeah, some of the ghettos up this way have recently been… militarized. Apparently they look… a little more like internment camps nowadays.”
“Jesus…” Rogue murmured. Logan saw the crestfallen look on her face, but knew there was nothing he could really do or say to fix it.
“You were right, Rogue,” he admitted aloud. “About it being worse than I thought.”
“I…understand now why you thought you had more time, though,” Rogue said quietly. Logan swallowed, waiting for the next inevitable question to come.
“And the report from Cape Town?” she asked quietly. Logan knew he couldn’t lie. If any of his heightened senses at all were still lurking about in her, she would directly smell deceit on him anyway. A nice little card trick of his mutation, if there ever was one.
“I don’t know all of it. Just what Storm told me, but it’s bad.”
“How bad?”
“It was a multi-front initiative. It was a Mark X behind us, one of several, I guess, and they targeted the zones where the most mutant rights groups were situated. They can smell us continents away now.” Logan wondered if she would be upset by this news, considering her attitude about the topic from the past few weeks. Instead, however, her breath was even and steady, a cold, hard look in her eye.
“So it’s starting,” she simply offered.
“Yeah.” Logan admitted. “Yeah, darlin’. It is.”
--
Surprisingly enough, the next few weeks passed by in relative peace, and they hadn’t speak about what had happened between them since. Logan shouldn’t have been surprised that Rogue was trying to do most of the work without his help, but since their candid conversation upon arriving here Logan felt a bit like he was losing ground again, unsure of where he stood with Rogue. Additionally, the idea of another version of himself in her head was… disturbing… and Logan couldn’t help but to resort to a little masochism wondering about it, particularly late at night when he was alone. Was the fucker always around, talking to her? Did he know everything that had happened to Marie in the time Logan had been away? Did he know about Henry? The rest of her secrets? And what about the more personal, intimate things? Did she just lock him away when she got undressed, or needed privacy, or—fuck him to hell— touched herself? Or did it even matter to her, as friendly and warm as they seemed to be with each other, for that version of himself to be around all the time because he simply wasn’t as threatening or real, only existing inside her head? Logan found himself experiencing wild, juvenile envy about it all, hating whatever fucked up version of him got to be with Marie constantly, unencumbered. Lucky fuckin’ sonofabitch. Meanwhile, Marie had been in the debriefing room with Charles almost every day. This was also starting to put Logan on edge. He knew there were a multitude of new memories to sift through, but the sheer time and energy it seemed to sap from both of them had Logan feeling increasingly guilty and irritable.
The good news was that Logan had received a new outlet for this anxious energy over the past couple of weeks or so, for which he was grateful. Once again, he and Storm had begun the process of going on brief scouting missions, this time to seek out possible means of extraction in the various death camps cropping up in Canada. Both excursions they had been on had been local, so far, putting Storm and he back in the military barracks in a matter of a few hours with the help of the Blackbird that now occasionally returned to their home base.
The missions, however, had a darker, disturbing side to them too, and it seemed that, in its typical fashion, history was intent on repeating itself. The focus on maintaining mutant ghettos seemed to be fading in popularity worldwide, and, more and more, the ghettos were becoming “militarized.” This, in Logan’s mind, seemed to mean that they were killing off any weak mutants, branding all those who were kept alive, and stripping what little semblance of independence they had away. The effect was eerily similar to the old memories of Nazi Germany, and, not for the first time, Logan had the urge to sink his claws into anyone who was facilitating this kind of hate. Unfortunately, though, there was nothing around to kill, and supplies were limited. The plan was simply to spring as many people as they could, one camp at a time, and this was only made possible at all because they had Blink.
During a rare meeting where Charles and Rogue were actually present, they had begun to target a utility plant turned mutant ghetto now turned death camp, which also housed a research facility of some kind. The last part of it, anything with the word “research” in the title, made Logan’s stomach churn, especially when he learned that both women and children were living inside the camp as well.
“Two Rivers is only about a hundred miles north of the barracks,” Charles said evenly. Rogue had just glanced at Logan after this news, and he gave her a grim look back.
“Logan and Storm will do some initial scouting, but, in two weeks, our plan is to extract. Logan, I am sorry, my friend, but you will be bearing the brunt of the dirty work of this mission. Your healing factor, as well as your other… gifts... will be integral.”
“It’s about taking out as many guards as possible, as fast as possible,” Logan grumbled as he leaned against the farthest wall. “I get it, Charles.”
“Rogue, you will be accompanying Logan inside. While Logan provides the distraction, Storm will be downloading the software virus that will disable the camp’s security system, unlocking the cells.”
“And from there, Blink does her magic?” Logan asked. Blink shot him a look from the far wall, and Logan smirked. Logan found himself taking to the woman, because she was, like him, extremely keen on surviving. She was also fast and capable as hell.
“It’s easier for mass entrance through the portal. If I go one by one, I’ll never get them all,” Blink clarified.
“And where will we be portal’ing them to?” Logan asked. “Not near enough room ‘round here, and certainly not enough provisions around for all the little mouths to feed, especially with winter on our doorstep,” Logan remarked. At this, Rogue shot Logan a dirty look, for a moment briefly embodying the mutant-with-a-cause persona he found on her in Mexico, to which he just shrugged his shoulders. It was the fucking truth, and she knew it.
“Erik has been in contact with a larger mutant compound even further north where they will be safe.”
“And the Mark X’s, professor?” Everyone turned to look at Rogue. It was the question nobody wanted to ask, but everyone had on their minds.
“If the sentinels arrive, we save as many lives as we can, but Blink takes us back, straightway. There would likely, however, be grave casualties. We are hoping that is a possibility that does not come to light.”
--
Another week passed, and then the snow started. Logan felt it in the wind first out on their most recent scouting mission. It was how the air suddenly decided it wasn’t enough for itself, and the wind started singing in restlessness. The snap in the air, particularly this far north in Canada, was ultimately how he knew it to be, being well accosted to the climate, although anyone could have told you October in northern Canada meant winter. The snow, meanwhile, had made the barracks even colder. Each room had portable heaters, but, being so far underground meant little else in the way of basic comfort. Logan was built for such conditions, and it bothered him little, but he wasn’t thoughtless enough to not understand that no one else felt similarly.
The afternoon after it had started, he had found Rogue in her room, miserable and shivering in a coat and two blankets, a wafting cup of coffee in her hand.
“That healing factor of mine finally wearing off?” he asked, half-joking. The way she shook had actually disturbed him, and while he would have gladly offered his body for warmth, Rogue’s mood had been even icier than the ground outside lately. And with as many long and grueling sessions she had had with Charles not likely to subside any time soon, he knew better than to get walloped because of a snarky, if not honest, offer like that.
“Fuck off, Logan,” she said seriously, as she shivered.
A couple of days later, however, the climate shifted slightly, and the place warmed a bit. Logan was eager to board the creaky freight elevator to go outside, even though there was likely more than a foot of snow on the ground. He was suited up for such an endeavor with a pair of decent boots and a warm coat, even gloves, when he found Rogue in what they had taken to calling the “living room,” which was just another briefing room that they had shoved a few extra mattresses in along with the coffee maker. It also, most notably, had a record player somebody had found in the storage facility that actually worked, although Logan had thumbed through the records to find the choices less than satisfying.
“Wanna go on a walk?” he asked her. She was flopped listlessly on one of the mattresses, in less layers, but looking no less miserable.
“What? Out there?” Marie asked, looking mildly disgusted.
“It’s not like its literal hell outside, Marie. It’s just snow,” but Rogue still threw him another uneasy look.
“Tell that to Dante and his ninth circle,” she quipped. Logan rolled his eyes.
“Point taken, but let’s go, darlin’. It won’t be so bad once you’re finally out there, and our resident weather lady tells me it’s clear, which means it will feel down right pleasant. Besides, I’ll help ya get all bundled up.”
A half an hour later, they were out in the white expanse of snow, the mountains arching up around them, the pines tall and sturdy under the brilliant and clear blue of the sky. Logan took a moment, breathing in deeply before exhaling, the cold air illuminating his breath.
Meanwhile, Rogue’s nose had gone pink from the cold, but she seemed fairly comfortable. She was bundled up tightly in a dark gray scarf and coat that was a little too big on her, but her hair was free, wild and clean and bright in the cold sun. Logan also went without a hat, mainly because he wasn’t in the habit of wearing one and he didn’t need to anyway. It was only hovering just below freezing as it was, and, in the sun, it was remarkably warm, given the circumstances. They walked for about a half of a mile or so in relative contentment, Logan helping her over rocks and sticks and other various obstacles, bringing out a rarer more gentleman like side of him. For as strong as she was, Marie was still naturally a bit clumsy, a fact that inwardly pleased Logan. After a while they finally stopped to take in another spectacular view, standing in a shallower patch of snow, breathing in the mountain air
“So you grew up somewhere out here,” she said softly, after a bit of time. It wasn’t a question. She hadn’t brought up a single word about his past yet, and this little remark took Logan by mild surprise. Logan had only one or two memories that far back, and they were often the hardest to access.
“It is strange being back here with you. In this place,” Logan offered.
“Where we met,” Rogue said, grinning a bit.
“Yeah, you a little spitfire trying to get me to cart you around, headed God knows where-”
“Didn’t see you objectin’ all that much, in the end-” she playfully offered.
“Like you left me much of a choice,” he said, turning to face her head on. She was smiling, and then the smile became more knowing, almost devilish.
“What?” Logan asked.
Her grin grew even wider.
“What?” Logan asked again, a bit more annoyed.
Then, completely out of character, she moved her hand up to his temple, barely running her fingers through his hair, a swipe that, even with a gloved hand, sent a quiver through him.
“I just noticed, sugar. Must be the way the light’s reflecting off the snow. Grey. In your hair. Just barely a couple strands of it.” Logan’s eyes widened a bit, unsure of what to think of the accusation.
“No fucking way,” he finally settled on, defensively.
“I swear to God. It’s there, sugar,” she said, and now Logan wished she’d wipe that grin off her face.
“You’re pullin’ one over on me,” he said, eyes narrowing, even as an odd, foreign feeling of self-consciousness flowed over him.
“As soon as I get you in front of the mirror, I’ll show you,” she said, and then looking up at him again, she added, “Anyway, it suits you.”
“Well, fuck. Must have been from dealing with your stubborn, contentious ass for the last few weeks.”
Rogue grinned for a moment more, before her face began to fall, the memories of their time in Africa visually dampening her spirits.
“Seems the fight’s left you, since Cape Town, that is,” Logan murmured after a bit, looking at her again.
“Well… I’ve a lot more on my mind,” she said softly, still holding his gaze.
“You found your way through that cloud yet?”
“Workin’ on it,” she said, finally looking down at her snow-covered boots.
“Anything interesting?” he pressed. Logan was dying for information, and would have done just about anything for any sort of hint on this front. As she considered his question, for a second he began to regret asking her, but then he was surprised to see her eyes lighten a bit, when he had been expecting her to become lost in some terrible memory of war or something far worse.
“You loved ‘Let It Be’.”
“What?” Logan asked, surprised.
“The song. ‘Let It Be.’”
“Bullshit,” Logan retorted.
“You know I’m right,” she said through another smile.
“I hate the Beatles,” Logan grumbled, shifting in place a little bit.
“You hated the Beatles, but you loved that song.” The past tense threw him for a minute, before he realized what she was getting at. The old him, before it had all left. Less Logan, more James.
“You hated the smell of turpentine, but loved the smell of diesel exhaust and freshly opened Polaroid film.”
“Rogue, what’re you getting at-”
“Even though you hated wearing one, and avoided doing so in almost every circumstance that you might have been forced into, you looked surprisingly, remarkably good in a bowler hat.” Logan frowned even more at this, caught incredibly off guard, kicking his boot in the snow. Suddenly, the game didn’t seem so fun.
“Marie…” he said softly.
“And there’s no way you could’ve saved him,” she practically whispered. At this, he looked up to her once more sharply.
“Saved who?”
“The little boy, in Vietnam,” she said softly, and his whole body stiffened. Logan closed his eyes momentarily, before opening them.
“It’s really fucked up that you know about that,” he finally said.
“I know,” she whispered, before looking again at the ground.
“And I still don’t have shit on you,” he murmured, staring at the way her hair clung to her coat in places, the pink from the cold gracing her features.
“Most of it…isn’t worth knowing,” she finally said. He instinctively moved forward then, taking a gloved hand to her chin and bringing up her face to look at him.
“I couldn’t disagree more, baby.” With that he leaned in close, his mouth just lingering beyond her ear. “All I wanna know about is what makes you tick. There ain't one single part of you I don't wanna get my hands on to figure it out, either, and that’s the goddamn truth.” And then, there it was, the deeper understanding that ran hard and dark through them both. She was absolutely in synchrony with him, just enough of his instincts left in her to speak the same base language. She looked at him, peering right into his goddamn soul, before leaning in, breathing in his scent, and tilting her neck just slightly, the thin, delicate skin of her neck exposed. It was all too fucking much, and the animal rose up within him, and before he could understand what he was doing he gently and evenly pressed his lips and teeth to the exposed skin of her neck, biting just slightly. She sighed in pleasure, and he was fucking gone.
For a few seconds, nothing happened but the feeling of her soft skin on his tongue, but then the world seemed to be falling away from him, his head dizzy.
“Sugar…” she warned, but he could only growl in response, using his tongue to lap up and soothe the bite marks, still able to feel her pulse in his mouth, the warm scent of her arousal, her sex... him flowing into her.
“Logan!” she said more loudly, and it took everything in him to finally rip away. He was barely standing, woozy on the spot, black dots in his vision and the light-headed feeling of being poured through a pitcher still seething through him.
“Fuck, darlin’,” he said, feeling exhilarated and wild and good. He came back to himself, to the man, then, and as he looked at her, he realized there were tears in her eyes. His heart sank.
“Hey. Hey. C’mere,” he said, pulling her close to his chest. She leaned into him easily, like she had always belonged there, as he buried the bridge of his nose into her soft hair.
“I’m sorry,” he could hear her murmur, through another few tears. “I’m sorry for all of it.”
“It’s ok, baby,” he mumbled into her hair. For a while he held her like that, boots wet in the damp snow. “We’re gonna figure this thing out, Marie,” he finally said, his grip tightening slightly on her. “I swear to fucking God we will.”
--
The night was dark and still, as a snap and a hiss opened the portal around them, and they walked through, boots suddenly meeting the grey of fresh, darkened snow. Logan looked around to Rogue once more, double-checking again on the safety of her well-being, as they all finally turned their gaze forward, glancing over the snowy drift from where they had arrived, several hundred feet away from it all. Just beyond though, in the cradle of two bluffs, Two Rivers sprawled out in front of them, a series of low, cinderblock buildings, a grim and angry growth on the edge of the world.
The extraction was planned for tomorrow night, and Charles had decided that Logan, Rogue and Blink would go on one last scouting mission to ensure they had flagged all exits and entrances on every single building. By this point, Logan had the place memorized, at least from the outside, but understood Charles’ continued unease. Logan had, however, been mildly nervous for Marie to make the trip, because this would be the first time she had scouted the territory, mainly due to her long and grueling sessions with Charles, although he had occasionally wondered if there was some other reason Charles had never sent Rogue before this moment that Logan wasn’t aware of. Nevertheless, Logan was remotely thankful that the series of buildings were relatively quiet tonight. No disturbances at all, so far. There were, of course, a hundred snaking lines of barbed wire fencing that connected all the buildings though, and as Marie glanced down at the snarling series of buildings, she frowned deeply. He knew it was a fucking maze, and even though the last couple of nights he and Rogue had extensively plotted and memorized how they would position themselves tomorrow, finally knowing it for what it really was was another matter entirely.
Logan realized he was already far too in his own head, running through the various potential memorized escape strategies, noting where the guards usually stood, took smoke breaks, analyzing how many people he could take out in the shortest amount of time tomorrow night as Rogue and Blink did their work helping people escape, before his hearing picked up on a cargo truck steadily approaching from the east. He felt Marie grab his forearm tightly before he finally refocused his attention, eyes back on the front building once more. Weeks after the jolt, and she could still hear it too.
“Let’s go” Blink said, warily as the sound of the truck got louder.
“No… just keep low,” Logan barely whispered. If these were new detainees, he needed to calculate how many, and adjust the new estimate of the number of prisoners resided inside of Two Rivers for Charles and Erik.
The large army truck backed itself into the gravel front entrance slowly. They all watched as two guards exited the main building and the drivers got out of the front, undoing several locks on the back of the truck bed. Suddenly, Logan anticipated what and specifically how it was going to happen, and he instantly regretted having asked for them all to stall. As the guards steadily unloaded the cargo, mutants of varying ages, some of them mere children, filed out, all of them in handcuffs, all of their necks glowing yellow with the hum of inhibition collars.
The guards prodded the people along, quickly organizing them into two lines, and Logan swallowed hard. He had been around long enough to know that two lines in this sort of instance only usually meant one thing: a line for those who would be kept alive, and a line for those who would be killed. He instinctively touched Rogue’s covered hand.
“Marie-” is all the warning he managed to give before they got to work.
Just then, the guard on the right side steadied a handgun in front of the first mutant, a young man, in the right line, while the other guard readied a long knife in front of the left line. As one of the drivers divided more mutants into two lines behind them, the left guard suddenly grabbed the first woman in line by the upper arm, and the metal of the blade greeted her skin as her blood ran and a gruesome “M” started to form on the side of the woman’s face. She screamed, as gun shots rang out in the air in the next line, and the younger male mutant dropped to the snow lifelessly. That’s when everyone else started screaming.
Marie had tears rolling down her cheeks before she managed to turn away, hatred and grief stiffening her. Logan watched only for a few seconds more before he also took his eyes off of the scene below. As countless people were either killed or disfigured, judged quickly for their utility and use for inside the camp, the feeling of helplessness burgeoned. Logan knew there was no fucking way they could save these people now. Not without giving up their own lives, which, he realized grimly, he refused to do. They needed more time, more reinforcements.
Logan turned, looking at Blink knowingly: “Take us back, Blink. I think we’ve seen enough.”
--
As the portal opened and they found themselves fifty feet underground again in the military barracks, Rogue looked to Logan, a heartbroken, bitter color in her eyes. She said nothing as she walked away from him, in the direction of her own bedroom, without speaking. Logan said nothing as well as he swallowed hard, turning once more to face fiercely forward, to the truth of it all. The rage in his own blood sang with need; he wanted to take the life of something so desperately, he almost couldn’t stand it.
Instead, he found a bottle of half-consumed whiskey in the living room, and took to it. His muscles were still sore with tension, the never-ending stiffness in his right arm flaring with each step he took. Logan knew now that this mission, successful or not, was going to be a fucking bloodbath. There were likely to be casualties on both sides, but Logan simply understood, at the end of it all, that Rogue would have to, need to, survive. He couldn’t be as careless as he had nearly been last time.
For a while, he simply took his position leaning on one of the stainless steel tables in the living room, still standing and drinking directly from the bottle, little interest in anything else. Nobody else found him there for a long time, until he heard the quiet, but solid, footsteps of Marie, bare feet lightly padding the concrete just beyond him.
“Sugar?” she asked quietly. Logan turned, just to make out she was in an oversized t-shirt, and little else. She was gloveless and uninhibited, and Logan noticed her hair had grown in the weeks he had seen found her again, falling softly now right above her breasts.
“You got room for me in that bottle?” she asked, finally taking her place next to him, leaning on the table as well.
“Always,” he murmured, offering her the liquor. She took a long, languid sip of the stuff without once sputtering, handing it back to him a moment after swallowing it.
“It was so much worse than I imagined,” she said evenly, her eyes grey and dark. The tears were gone, but only just so. For a moment, Logan only responded by taking another pull from the bottle.
“It’s one thing knowin’ it and another seein’ it,” he muttered, without accusation.
“How have you done it all this time?” she murmured, as he passed the bottle back to her, and she intuitively took it from his bare hand into her own.
“Baby, some of those things you’re seein’, I was missing in my head for long while,” he said, truthfully.
“You still lived with the memory of it, before Stryker. Day in and day out. For decades,” she offered.
“That stuff though...Humanity’s always been warring with each other. Committing atrocities. It’s the way of it, sensin’ threats and exterminating them.”
Marie’s look darkened a bit at that, and she said nothing.
“That voice in your head agreeing with me on that one?” he asked, a little too severely. Despite his tone, Marie almost offered a bitter laugh at this, closing her eyes momentarily.
“I knew you were going to eventually ask,” she said, folding her arms around her defensively.
“I can’t help it, Marie. Even now, it’s driving me fucking crazy,” he managed, looking at her.
“Logan, you know...he’s not, it’s not, really there,” she finished awkwardly.
“How do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean— and he’s gonna give me hell for sayin’ this— but he’s not…all of you. It’s an imprint, more like how a memory works, if a memory could talk and have a fucking attitude. But he doesn’t breathe, he doesn’t actually…live.”
“Really now?” Logan said, still unconvinced, his voice a bit more predatory, too drunk now to notice or care.
She hesitated for a moment, frowning a bit, before standing up straight. “Hey. I almost forgot. I have a present for you. I nicked it a bit after we got here, saving it for the right occasion.”
And suddenly she was fumbling around in a metal cabinet, putting on a record he hadn’t seen before when he had originally grazed over the stack. As the needle lapped up the grooves Logan noticed it was an old Bob Dylan album, and then “A Hard Rain’s A-Fallin’” started crooning from the speakers.
“Holy shit, Marie,” he said, eyes wide, the smallest smile on his face. “You’ve been holding out on me.”
“Like I said, the right occasion,” she mumured, a somber note in her voice, before walking back over, arm extended as she offered the whiskey to him again.
“That bottle’s pretty low,” he said simply, glancing down at the glass and thin line of amber liquid left dancing back and forth. “You still gotta likin’ for that, it seems. That from the shock, still?”
“No,” she murmured. “That’s just me, baby. I got southern roots, ‘member? It comes by me naturally,” she said, her southern drawl barely grazing the sounds of her words once more. She took her place next to him again, but she suddenly felt much closer, one long, naked thigh practically brushing up against the uniform he was still wearing. He noticed the shift, setting the bottle down behind him and turning to her, effectively pinning her against the table.
‘What’re you doing, sugar?” she said quietly, looking up at him.
“I’m lookin’ at you,” he murmured, through steady, even eyes.
“That all?” she barely whispered.
He growled as he leaned in and roughly took her into his mouth. His tongue ran over hers as he nipped her bottom lip, his body responding by pushing her up harder against the table behind. She moaned a bit into his mouth, hands instinctively wanting to explore him, when he felt the power begin to take them both. He broke the kiss momentarily before he had her full, wet lips on his once more. He growled again, grabbing her thin waist and all at once hoisting her onto the table, as he continued to kiss her roughly. Her strong, capable thighs cradled him as one of his hands tightened in her hair, the other traveling up the length of her thigh, pushing back the hem of the t-shirt. He wanted to throw her up against the fucking wall and bury himself inside her, feeling her body throb around him. He wanted her to shout his name as he made her come, drinking her up, lashing out with his tongue…
Her power sent a warning jolt through them both, a loud, hard quake, and he broke away again, increasingly frustrated. As he looked at her, he realized, through it all, she had tears in her eyes. He tried to tighten his grip on her, but it was then she pulled away, just slightly. He stopped, the animal in him suddenly confused, and hurt. He tried to get a hold of his mind, reaching back toward the human part of himself, finding the words to speak.
“Marie…what?”
“We can’t..” she whispered, still a bit breathless. All he could focus on was how red and wet her mouth was from him, how her nipples looked underneath the sheer fabric. She was still upset, though, and he shook his head a little to get a fucking grip on himself. A bit more slowly, he moved to a hand to cradle her head again, but once more she slipped away a little, and his hand dropped. That’s when the paranoid questions started filling his mind.
“This about you?” he breathed, his hands falling into her lap at the new unease. “Cause that’s not a good enough excuse. It takes longer to kick in…. I got whole seconds sometimes. I need a little practice, maybe, but-” She had already been shaking her head though, and he sighed, obviously frustrated.
“This about the feral stuff?” he asked a little more quietly after a bit of silence, suddenly feeling more than a little self-conscious and paranoid about the answer as Marie blushed again. “Because I can try-”
“No. No. Or, it’s not in the way you think, sugar,” Marie said, finally finding her voice. It was a bit ridiculous, her still sitting on the table, his hands barely around her, trying to understand what the fuck was going on. Again, a sense of hope, and then the sting of a letdown. Their whole fucking relationship in a nut shell so far. He warmed a little, though, when in his ear she added, “If you have me, I want all of you having me. But…” she dropped off, and something deep inside him started hurting at the word if instead of when.
“It’s about claiming you, isn’t it? Jesus, Marie, you already know about it, don’t you? You know… if I get to have you, there’d be no end.” The realization hurt as it sunk in. It wasn’t her skin that had stopped them a few days ago on their walk, although it hadn’t certainly helped. For her, perhaps, it was the cold: the barren, twisted future that loomed before them, the light dying quickly.
“You gotta understand, sugar, I’m not afraid of something lasting a long while…” she closed her eyes momentarily, “My whole life, even. But when you talk about something like that you only see it the one way. On a straight, singular line. You always have,” she whispered, and her hand cradled the side of his face for a brief moment before she let it fall.
“What other way is there, Marie?” Logan asked, suddenly suspicious again, his tone even and careful.
She said nothing as she stared down at his strong hands still in her lap.
“Marie?”
“I know what I’m gonna do now,” she finally said, that steely, resolute look back in her fucking eyes, and Logan realized that his Marie from the snow was gone.
“What do you mean?” Logan asked again.
“Tomorrow, I’m gonna watch all of those sorry fuckers this did this burn.”
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Chapter End Notes:
Annnnddd, I'm spent. All I did was write this weekend. It was glorious, but now I gotta go catch up on my life. Give me a few days for the next one, if that's alright. Just as a heads up, we're nearing the end of Part 1. Should be through by Chapter 12.
Thanks as always for all the love and support. Y'all are really awesome people
Thanks as always for all the love and support. Y'all are really awesome people