It had seemed such a good idea at the time, to shadow Logan, to find out where and what he did at the beck and call of Xavier. Now she was here she really didn't think she could or should go through with it.
Just how she'd managed to keep below his senses she had no idea but she knew part of his own training was playing it's part. Cues in her head had urged her to change vehicle frequently, to make sure she had every tank gassed full; to pick cars that blended in with the crowd. No trucks, no bright colours, blue or burgundy were best, the eye slid off them and she'd noted that he'd picked a battered Ford with at least ten years on the clock. Dusty but cared for by the looks of it. If she hadn't known who had been inside it she'd never have looked twice.
The man Logan had in the trunk of the car obviously was someone important, although no one could look impressive when they had a pair of boxer shorts on and a ripped wife beater.
She'd shadowed him since the house where he'd picked the guy up from; there had been toys in the front yard, a trike and a football set. Logan had just walked upto the house, his face scanning the surrounding area as he moved swift and quiet. All focus on the thing he was doing, his purpose at the front of his mind and she'd felt the first tremors of fear about her course of action right there. The look in his face and eyes had been one she hadn't recognised, even on missions she'd never seen him like this. This was a part of him he'd kept from her and her instincts were telling her there had been a reason for it.
Logan had pulled the man out of the house and bundled him into the boot in just less than fifteen seconds. The dazed man was quiet compliant and the large bruise on the side of his head was testament to the metal that covered Logan's hands. That he'd managed it so fast had her looking around for someone to actually notice the act of terrorism that was occuring across from her vantage point. That he could enter a surburban area, scope out and kidnap someone in less than an hour and for no one to even see or hear him. She'd had difficulty even keeping him in sight when he'd driven out of the area. When she'd lost him her senses and memories gave her hints and clues. She'd ended up going down to the East Side docks, catching the sound of the engine and the flash of blue losing itself in the rest of the cars entering for work.
She'd entered too, keeping her head down and her mind focussed on the car and where it went in the maze of old buildings and abandoned warehouses.
Logan would pick somewhere quiet, near the river but close enough to the roads to make a clean getaway. She'd found him quickly, the car half hidden among other wrecks, the dusky blue blending in perfectly with the other sunbleached hulks. Smiling at her own intelligence and smarts for getting this far she'd squashed the voice at the back of her head telling her that she should go home now. Turn the car around and just get the hell out of Dodge, but there was something inside that needed to see what he did. Why he left the mansion so often on these missions for Xavier and why he never mentioned them.
So here she was crouched against a concrete wall steadying her heartbeat and levelling out her breath. Controlling her body so she wouldn't stand out against the background, she was a part of the docks, part of the wall, part of the building Logan was in. Bringing her head level with the loading bay she looked up, making sure her head was covered by some piece of detritus so her outline didn't stand out.
Logan was dragging the guy by his arms through to another room, he was still out, heels making furrows in the accumulated crap on the floor. She stayed still for what seemed to be ages before she even thought about coming out. She'd been about to move when Logan had come back out, his shirts were open and there was a bloodstain on the cloth of his undershirt. The red was speckled over the fabric, so it wasn't his and the fabric was still intact. She could see him trying to calm down, his hands clenching and unclenching, knuckles bloody, a screwed up anger churning in his face needing release. She watched as he shredded a crate, knowing that it was the man inside he was killing but there was something he needed from him or he'd have killed him by now.
It was that piece of information that just dropped itself into her head like a neutron bomb. That had come from the piece of Logan she still had in her head, suddenly the cool calm exterior she'd seen over the years shattered. Logan wasn't what he showed them at the school, he was this, this was his 'true' face, Wolverine was his true personality. All the times he'd admonished her for putting her life at risk for others came back to her. The times he'd chewed her out for taking a risk he'd think nothing of. Knowing now that he was angry at her for doing what he did, what he was 'allowed' to do by Xavier. Sometimes the harshness and cruelty he showed on the battlefield made her wonder about him but he'd always hugged her afterward and told her that what was on the battlefield stayed there. When he was with her he was 'different', seeing him tear into the crates here made that lie seem like lead in her chest.
Finally when he left her tears had dried and her face was a mask of concentration. If she wanted the truth she'd have to find it for herself; moving in a crouch she used what cover Logan had left. The sounds of someone suffering were getting louder as was the soft laughter of someone she'd cared about.
It was the sound she'd often associated with her sitting next to him as they watched old movies in the rec room. He'd missed out on a bunch of stuff and she'd made it a tradition that when he was at the mansion they'd spend one night a week watching a movie he'd missed. They'd had fun, explored their relationship a little further than 'Brother/Sister' and turned it into a deeper friendship. One where she thought he'd trusted her a little more with parts of himself. Things no one else knew or he wasn't comfortable showing to others. But now she'd associate it with something and someone else entirely.
The panes of glass were broken in the half walled office, the man was pinned to the back wall by plastic straps. His skin bruised and torn by blows but there were no cuts on him, the sense of Logan's choice entered her head. If he used his blades the cuts could be recognised, there were plenty of other ways to make a man suffer. Logan approached the man and just pressed two large fingers on a point near the man's groin. Holding the mans body as he did it, the smile on his face cold and distant. Watching as the man began to struggle as blood pooled below his waist. Seeing the trussed man's penis begin to swell, watching as Logan nodded to himself when it had reached capacity. His eyes snapped to her own, making her jump in her skin and freezing her solid. The voice one she'd never associated with him before, cold, cruel, indifferent and all Wolverine. "Get your ass out here before I kill you; an believe me girly I will if you don't move." He didn't shout, he didn't look away from her as her body struggled with the fear that was crippling her mind. Finally shifting when he bared his teeth and shouted loud enough to rattle the remaining glass. "MOVE!"
She moved, bringing herself out of the cover she'd hidden herself in, unsteady suddenly, all of her training feeling useless faced with this face of Logan. Keeping his gaze at her own Logan pulled the mans head up to look in her direction. The fear in the man's eyes reached out to her, as she came closer she could see the compound fractures in his arms. The wrenched muscles, the torn knee, whatever Logan did he did well. The man was in severe pain but he was still conscious, still able to give answers.
Logan's voice rang out again as he gripped the mans face in his hand, the fingers leaving small bruises on his already swelling face. "Looks harmless don't she?" Logan moved his megawatt stare to look at the man he was torturing, the pleasure in his hazel gaze turning her stomach. "If you're lucky I'll let her kill ya, see she can kill ya with just a touch on your skin. Light as a butterflies kiss or you can do things *my* way." Logan pressed his fingers into a bunch of nerves just next to the mans ear an the scream that erupted out of his raw throat had Logan clamping his free hand over the mans open mouth.
"Shhhh, shhhhh, quiet now or I'll cripple your back and leave you hanging for a week before I tell folks where you are."
The man still screamed as the tears flowed over his face, the disgust she was feeling tripled when Logan licked the salt from the mans skin and laughed at his suffering. His smile fixed and rictus turned the face she'd loved into something like Sabretooth. Moving swiftly he dragged her over to him, so she could see him up close and personal. The eyes of the man strapped to the wall were begging her, asking her to release him or to get help. She found herself beginning to plan a way out for the man, to somehow drop Logan and get the man away from here. Logan's nose picked up on her distress and his grip moved to her waist controlling her movements, "Tell her, tell her Micheal or I'll break your other knee." The voice was honey sweet but the tone held a darkness she'd never experienced before.
The man swallowed, his adam's apple bobbing as his gaze flickered between the two of them. Logan's hand flicked the small recorder he had in his hand on and held it in front of her face between the two of them.
At first when he spoke she thought it was something like a study, an exercise in feasibility. It was only when Logan began to growl under his breath did her breathing begin to falter. He pulled her close to him, her ears hearing the words he whispered to her as she listened to the meat sack that passed for a human being. That there had been children taken, experimented on, given drugs that needed trialing for conditions they didn't suffer from. That the company he worked for found it easy to use mutants, their families didn't want them or really didn't ask questions when effects were bad on their children putting it down to the childs own abilities.
Logan's whispered words weren't any better, he told her about the raids he'd been on recently, the documents that she herself had collected, discs filled with names, data experimentational regimes. Everything she'd been handing over were the nightmares of every child at the school and it was happening every single day right under her nose.
He told her about the kids he'd seen, skin sloughing away because they'd been given the wrong drug. Blood transfusions and collecting bone marrow when they were awake, children, toddlers caged like animals, no names just numbers. Old eyed and signs of sexual abuse obvious, shaved heads, chains, whip marks and burns on sensitive skin. Skin that should have only seen a loving touch, scarred with lines of stitches. Logan's words drowned out the words of the man in front of her, she didn't see him as human anymore. When her anger was huge he just whispered into her ear, "He was the one who bought em Marie, he bought babies from scared women at the hospital. Took em young and brought em up to be 'things'."
Suddenly the thought of the toys in the front yard came back to her, the children he obviously had back home. She looked at Logan her eyes filled with hatred but her heart was still human. "He has family Logan." The smile on Logan's face lit a dark fire inside him as he answered her.
"Not for long darlin'."
Then she knew he'd killed them all inside the house, every single person that knew this man was dead already. That's why he'd taken so long to come back out, he'd been killing them all, a small voice at the back of her head was talking to her. When the bodies were found it'd be put down to a serial killer, Logan would hide his trail well. But the company this man worked for would think twice about it's experimental policy when they got word about where their employee was and what had happened to him.
She was frozen in hatred, the urge to kill the man in front of her was raging but she couldn't do it. Logan shifted his grip on her, letting her loose a little. His hands pulled the cotton boxers down the man's legs, her eyes dropped down and the dark colour of the skin made her eyes snap to Logan's face. "He's dyin' not got long so if there's anything worth gettin from him you'd better do it now." She looked at the man his mouth was slack, his sluggish voice now slurring,he was being killed by his own body. The pressure point Logan had used was killing him without doing anything else to him. Letting go of her entirely he lifted the mans head with his hand. "Learned that one from an old woman in China, she'd run a brothel in the second world war, used it on the men who'd abused her girls. They got just far enough away from her establishment before they died in agony." Logan's gaze dropped to her hands, to the gloves that covered them and flicked back to her face, "Your choice Marie, you wanted to know, now you know. What ya gonna do now?"
She'd been led here, Xavier had known and warned Logan, she'd been used, set up but it was her choice whether or not to touch the man that was dying in front of her. To take everything of use from his head and bring down what they'd been doing to people like her or to let him die and lose everything."
The glove slid off and she looked at the nearly black penis, swollen with blood. A smile that never reached her eyes went across her face as she gripped the swollen length. The flow was silent, no pain on her part, just information, she kept the personality at bay. Seeing the man's memories try to force their way into her mind, the mixture a horrific kaledoscope of images. Playing with his own children while he bought and sold mutant children to be experimented on. As the last images faded from his empty body into her mind she let go of him, her hand feeling filthy she looked for a place to wash her hand. Logan gave her an alcohol laden wipe which she took eagerly, watching as he wiped down the body, removing his own forensic trace from the skin. He didn't say a damn word to her as he set the place up to burn, knowing when to keep out of the way she waited for him where she'd first been hidden.
When the smoke came out of the doorway in rolling waves he finally walked through the concrete bay to where she was stood. He levelled a look at her that went through her, his eyes wary, his body tense as he grabbed her arm and pulled her to the car he'd been using. Shoving her inside the passenger side roughly and slamming the door. When he climbed in he didn't start the car straight away, his hands clenched and unclenched at the wheel, she knew he wanted to pop his claws, to release the pressure building up in his blood.
Unsure she reached out to him, the snarl and rush towad her had her backed up against the door her breath heaving. "NOW YOU KNOW! I'm NOT a FUCKIN' HERO Marie, I never WAS!" His blades had fired in the small space and she found herself pinned by them. Their sharp surfaces threatening her for the first time ever, seeign the confusion and sorrow in his eyes as he struggled with the words that were forcing themselves out of him.
"I'm a killer, a murderer, I'm the best at what I do and what I *DO* is kill. Wonder why Chuck keeps sending me out? Because he can't send people like *YOU*, you can't do what I do, you won't do what I do, you don't fight against doing this every day like I do."
He didn't let up, he was crowding her still and she could feel his warmth now as he moved even closer. "Ever wondered why I picked you out of all the brats there? Ever given it any thought at all cos' I have," the look in his face suddenly went sad and lonely, as if all light had been snuffed out in him. "Because one day your going to have to put me down permanently an' before that happens I wanted you to have a few good memories of me before you found out the truth about me. About what I really am underneath all this.... humanity."
The light came on in her head, all the missions, the way Xavier encouraged her friendship with him, siding with her in arguements about her and Logan. It was a safety net for him and the school, she could kill him if he went mad. He'd trust her to get close enough to touch him and after that it'd be academic really.
But that wasn't how she saw it, it wasn't how she felt, how she needed him. Seeing the truth of what he did didn't make her hate him, it made her love him. He did what needed to be done but the price was one that Logan didn't need to pay alone. Her gloved hand reached up through his bladed embrace to touch his skin. Her eyes not leaving his own as her voice reached out across the distance. "Teach me, train me to come with you." The look he gave her went from incredulous to thoughtful as he looked at her, smelling her feelings and reactions. It was what she wanted, she wanted to do this with him; to share it with him the burden of killing and remembering.
His first reaction was no, but the calm gaze she held was something he'd seen when she first went on a mission. Calm, resolute, focussed and all there in the moment. She could do it, she'd just done it back in the warehouse without a murmur of complaint.
Moving back into his seat he put on his seat belt and looked at her as she did her own. They were on the way to the crusher when he spoke to her, "I kill, you drain em when they're near death. We both clean up." Marie nodded she knew where they were headed, the car would be sold and crushed, soon to be recycled and all evidence would be lost. She'd gone to find out the truth and she'd gotten more than she'd bargained for but it was just another part of Logan. One she'd either have to accept or she'd have to leave him and leaving him wasn't an option. He'd never left her yet, not when she'd needed him and believe it or not he needed her. He wouldn't say it but he needed her, needed her to keep him human, to remind him what he was doing it all for.
Her gloved hand gripped his own over the steering wheel and she caught the smile that tweaked the side of his mouth. She'd passed this test, she just hoped she'd pass the next one, because that one was the last one and it led to the heart of him. She'd do it for him, he'd died for her more than once she owed him but love didn't keep count,she just hoped he realised it before she got too old. Squeezing his hand she focussed on the road ahead, the darkness closing around them as they went into the night.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000