The next morning Victor stalked through the rain back to the motel. He had taken a long, convoluted way back to the motel after taking his time getting breakfast, to be sure he wasn't followed. He also had a feeling his brother and his little mate would be wanting some more alone time when they woke.
Turned out he wasn't wrong. Baby was fast asleep, tucked up warm and cosy in her little bassinet, but her parents definitely weren't. He briefly wondered if he should leave again, to give them time to finish but one look back out into the rain made up his mind. He set the food bags down on the kitchenette counter and took a seat on the sofa, trying to ignore the sounds of pleasure filtering through the thin door.
The girl, Rogue, according to her file, though Logan called her Marie, let out a muffled cry as she came, his brother followed soon after. The noise roused the baby but he quietly shushed her, rocking her crib until she fell back into a contented doze. He gave the couple a few minutes before he knocked on the door and informed them breakfast was done.
Logan exited the bathroom first, dressed in only a pair of jeans, "Thanks, for breakfast, and for letting us finish," Logan said to him with a grin. Should figure his brother would have known the second he got back.
"That's some girl you've got there," Victor replied with a chuckle.
"Yeah, she's fantastic," Logan replied before moving to the crib to collect Niamh, who was just starting to grizzle again. "She makes cute kids too," he added, smiling down at the little girl as she stretched and yawned in his arms.
Marie came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, she flushed lightly when she saw Victor, whether because she was worried he'd heard them then, or knew he'd likely definitely heard them last night he wasn't sure. He would rib his brother about his sex life but not her, he smiled at her as he handed her some food. Marie returned his smile gratefully and took the chair Logan pulled out for her.
Marie watched Logan cradling Niamh against his bare chest with one arm while he ate with the other. He refused to hand baby over to her until he was satisfied she'd eaten enough, and then he called her over to him. He pulled her onto the bed to sit between his legs, using his broad chest as a pillow, while he held Niamh to her breast. This meant her hands weren't occupied supporting baby so she was able to play with her tiny fingers and toes while she fed, watching her mother, and over her shoulder, her father, with her big blue baby eyes.
The silence was broken by Marie. "I suppose I should apologize for kicking you in the balls the other day," she said, with a giggle.
Logan looked up as if to ask 'Really?!', a combination of pride and surprise in his eyes. Victor chuckled, "Nah kid, you were doing what you had to to protect your baby, you were being a good mama, I'm sorry I had to act like such an asshole. I am curious though, were you really considering letting Stryker shoot her? Would you really have wanted to live without your baby?"
Marie teared up as she replied, "If he had shot her how he was threatening it would have killed me too, and... I know what they did to Logan... I didn't want that for my baby but..." she broke off as the first tear trickled down her cheek. Logan wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight, no wonder she had been screaming when they took Niamh, the pain in her voice was what had got to him the most when he heard her, like they were tearing her heart out.
Victor changed the subject, they should probably finish introductions, they both knew who he was, he'd told Logan who he had been, so when Marie calmed again he tried to lighten the mood by asking, "So you're Marie, right?"
The girl nodded, "Anna Marie D'Ancanto, I go by Marie, and also Rogue," she replied.
"And am I allowed to ask how old you are?" he asked teasingly, cocking a brow at Logan. The girl was a lot younger than his brothers tastes usually ran.
Marie glanced up at Logan, who rolled his eyes at his brother and nodded his agreement for her to tell him. "I'm seventeen," she replied with a smile.
"How long have you been seventeen?" Victor asked pointedly. Chuckling as Logan shifted uncomfortably as Marie admitted she'd only been seventeen for a few months. Victor shook his head and tsked at his brother, who growled in response while Marie just laughed. "And what about the little one, she got a name?" he queried next.
"Niamh. Niamh Kenna Logan," Marie replied, smiling down at her baby when she turned her big blue eyes to her at the sound of her name.
"Really!?" Victor replied surprised, "Who picked that?"
"We both did, I guess," Marie answered.
"Marie suggested it, I okayed it, why do you ask?" Logan questioned, confused by his brother’s reaction.
"... Niamh was our mother's name," Victor answered after a pause. He had been six when his mother died, he still remembered her, having held tightly to every precious memory of her. She had been a beautiful, loving woman who held their father's heart so tightly she'd taken it with her when she died. If his niece was going to be even a fraction of the woman she had been then the world was in for a treat.
"You were right, you did know someone with that name," Marie said to Logan as he stared at Victor in shock.
"Yeah, I guess I was," he replied trying to reconcile how he knew that, without knowing it. It gave him hope that maybe the memories he was missing really were still in his head somewhere, though he had decided, some months ago, that he really wasn't so desperate to remember anymore. Turns out when you have a future the past isn't really all that important anymore.
They talked a bit longer, mainly about Logan's parents, before Victor grudgingly turned to the elephant in the room. Specifically, what they were doing next, if they were going to successfully shut down the threat to their family, they needed to move quickly.
"So, Xavier knows about you both, it won't take him long to hear about Stryker's downfall. I don’t know if Stryker managed to get word of Niamh to him, so he may not know about her yet. But Stryker was not his only contact in the... industry," Victor revealed. He detailed a number of programs that he knew Xavier was, or had worked with.
"But..." Logan looked confused, "Who have we been shutting down then?"
"Private, free market, competition,” Victor replied, "The guys you were shutting down, to be honest, were less offensive than government mandated programs. Xavier was protected because he worked with the government labs, he got his government support by threatening to expose the government labs. The whole thing's messed up, and the only one winning is Xavier."
"So, what happens if we take him out? What about his school, all those kids," Logan queried.
Victor pulled a file out of Logan's pack, "Full details of every government facility I could find, in the world, it's taken me three years to get that, it can go public in an hour, or, it can be passed to a mercenary squad and the whole thing shut down in a year; want to help?" he asked Logan as he leafed through the file.
Logan chuckled before sobering, "If you'd asked me a year ago, hell if you'd asked me two weeks ago, I'd have agreed in a heartbeat but I can't take a year, not now..." he replied, looking down at his daughter, slowly falling asleep in her mother’s arms. "But we'll need to take Xavier out before you can shut the rest down, otherwise he'll warn them," Logan pointed out.
"I can have four squads mobilized in fifteen minutes, as soon as Xavier is out of the picture, they already have their first targets planned. Everything's been waiting on recovering you." Victor revealed, he wasn't surprised his brother had opted out, family had always been his foundation, that was the only reason Logan had stayed with Stryker so long the first time around. "But we need to move quick, before Xavier hears about Stryker, and shut him down before he can find us."
"That fucker I'll take, that's personal," Logan growled. "We're in Maine, right? How long will it take us to get back to New York?"
"If you'll fly, I can have us landing in Xavier's backyard in two hours," Victor replied, with a grin when Logan grunted in displeasure but agreed.
"I don’t to want to go back," Marie whispered, "Logan they've got the tranquilizers and..." he shushed her gently.
"I know you don't want to go back sweetheart, I'd offer to send you somewhere else but right now there’s no one I trust enough to leave you two with and this has to be ended, now," Logan said, turning her around gently to cradle her against his chest, "Marie ... I have never been so scared of losing something in my entire life, then again nothing in my life has ever meant as much to me as you do ... I cannot risk losing you again and that means getting rid of the biggest threat to you, and that's him. He managed to track us across state, he’ll be able to find us wherever we go if we don't. And they won't have time to use the tranq's, besides, you remember last time they used them? Kept me down for, what, three minutes, I may or may not have been dosing myself regularly to build up a tolerance," Logan added with a grin and a sly wink.
Victor chuckled, "See, strategy master, he'll be fine kid, both of you will, we'll be there to watch your back," he assured Marie as he finished typing out a message on his phone. The phone pinged a moment later. "Cavalry with be here in fifteen minutes, we'd better pack and be ready."
Logan nodded and shifted Marie, leaving her cradling the soundly sleeping baby while he and Victor cleared all their belongings out.
Fifteen minutes later they were standing on the outskirts of town watching as a helicopter landed thirty feet in front of them. There were several people in the chopper, Logan felt like he knew who some of them were but he couldn't remember their names, it seemed they knew him as a couple nodded and smiled at him.
Victor handed Marie a pair of earmuffs for baby, which she fitted with a smile, before he handed her a pair of ear plugs. It was noisy in the cabin, a lot smaller than the Chinook they'd been transported in days before. He handed Logan an earpiece to allow him to hear the chatter from the front of the chopper. Victor filled this team in on their objective, giving Logan point on the mission; the rest of the team was present solely for protecting Marie and the baby and making sure no one interfered with whatever - he stressed the 'whatever' - Logan was going to do.
Logan heard the guy sitting opposite him ask the guy beside him if he could switch seats, when he grinned darkly at being given free rein to do anything he wanted. He wasn't much for going into a fight with a hard and fast plan but this, this was going to take some thought.
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