A.N.: Well, this is my first try at an X-Men fic, and even though I'm sure this has been done a thousand times before, I had to get it out of my system. Of course, I wrote this entire thing without being able to watch the movies and check the accuracy of what I've written, so please let me know if I made any mistakes!
Summary: Logan's tired of waiting for Marie, and he's finally going to do something about it…
"Refusing to Run"
He wasn't going to run again. Not this time, maybe not ever, though he knew he'd probably want to, often enough. She tended to have that affect on him, tended to make him want to run for the hills and not come back until she was old and wrinkled and couldn't possibly make his blood boil like it did every time he so much as thought about her. He knew that was ridiculous, of course, because at the same time he wanted to stay here, to make a life with her and never leave for any reason ever again, and he knew that it didn't matter if she was seventy or seventeen because she would still make him as crazy with love fifty years from now as she already did.
Love. There was that word again. He was using it so often now, if only in his own thoughts, but did he really know what it was? He'd never loved anyone before, had never cared about anyone but himself, and the intensity of these emotions still shocked him. They made him uneasy, and he sometimes found himself wishing that he didn't care so much for her. She was a weakness he didn't know how to handle, and he didn't like how dependent he was becoming. Nobody had ever had this much power over him, and he hated that he needed her so much, he who had never needed anyone.
He wasn't good enough for her. He knew that, everybody knew that. He was too old for her, for one thing, too old and much too cynical. Maybe she wasn't quite innocent herself, but she was still worlds better than he, and she deserved someone with a lot less emotional baggage than he had even on his best days. She deserved someone who could take care of her, someone who could make her happy as well as provide for her. If nothing else, he decided tiredly, she deserved someone who at least knew his own last name. Of course, no matter what she deserved, he wasn't going to let her go again. He'd tried that once, had tried to walk away and leave her until they were both ready to deal with the strength of his love for her, but his actions had only made things harder for both of them. She'd found someone else while he was gone, and even though he'd already realized that she would never feel for that kid what she felt for him, just knowing that she was looking at another male that way was killing him inside. He needed Marie, needed her more than he needed answers, more than he needed the solitude that had always been so great a part of himself. Without her, nothing seemed right, and he simply wasn't willing to risk losing her again, especially not to some upstart kid who wouldn't appreciate what he had.
Logan sighed, annoyance briefly flashing across his rugged, handsome face. I'm pathetic, he thought wryly. Who-knows-how-many years of being alone, of building up this tough guy image and learning not to need anyone, and I've been brought to my knees by some slip of a girl who, to further the irony, isn't even legal. How had his life come to this? He sighed again, briefly closing his green eyes. Marie wasn't ready for him, he knew. She might think she was, and he might wish she was, but she was still too young to settle down permanently—and Logan simply wasn't going to settle for anything else. When he finally made Marie his, it was going to be for keeps, and he didn't think she was ready to deal with forever just yet. Hell, he thought suddenly, I don't know if I'm ready to take on forever…
No, scratch that, he mused, a wry smile twisting his lips. I may be the world's original loner, but a forever with Marie is better than anything else I can imagine. Now, if I can just get her to dump that kid for me…
Not that Logan was actually going to do anything about the kid. Marie's relationship with Bobby Drake—with the Iceman—wasn't the real obstacle keeping Logan and Marie apart, and Logan knew it. Besides, he'd be damned if he was going to do anything to hurt Marie, and actively sabotaging one of the few relationships she'd managed to build would definitely hurt her. She just didn't have enough people in her life to lose even one; she was worse than he was, in that department, and Logan could admit that Bobby Drake was good for Marie. The kid made her feel normal, and that was something that even Logan couldn't do for her. He was too bound up in all that she'd gone through already, in all that she'd suffered and lost, and the memories of Liberty Island would always be a wall between them. Bobby was free of that taint, and Marie didn't even have to carry a bit of his soul in her head like she did Logan's. Never mind that Bobby wasn't man enough for her anyway, never mind that Logan already understood and loved Marie more than the Iceman ever could. None of it mattered, because Logan didn't want Marie ever to feel as alone as he always had until he'd met her, and Bobby was the best way to make certain that didn't happen.
Still, he was getting antsy. As far back as he could remember—which, since the first thirty-odd years of his life were pretty much a blank, really wasn't saying a whole lot—he'd never stayed in one place this long. Hell, he didn't think he'd ever stayed in one place even half as long, and who knew how many months or years he would have to wait before Marie was ready for him? She probably didn't even realize how much was hanging on her. He'd never actually tried to hide how he felt, after all, but the only two emotions he ever really showed were irritation and anger, and only a damned mind reader could really have known how deep his feelings for her went.
A mind reader like the professor…or Jean.
Jean had definitely known. Not at first, of course, since even Logan hadn't realized how he felt until that hellish night with Magneto and his death machine, but certainly before he'd left for Alkali Lake. Marie had put him in a coma for the second time since he'd met her, but he'd probably been projecting his concern for her all over the place from the moment he'd woken up, and Jean would have picked up on that. He'd known he was betraying his secret, even then, so he'd started flirting with Jean, distracting her with some mushy nonsense that he'd all but forgotten now. He still thought it had worked, too, at least until he'd come back for Marie, months later, and learned that she had moved on without him.
He hadn't known what to expect, when he'd come back that day. He'd only been gone for a year, but as hard as it had been for him, it was an eternity for someone Marie's age. Would she be angry with him for leaving her, or would that piece of him inside her help her understand why he'd had to go? His doubts and questions were inside her, as well as everything else that he was, and she would have known how important his past had become to him. She might not have guessed that she was the real reason he had left, of course, that she was the reason he wanted to know who he was because he at least wanted to have a last name to offer her, but she must have bought into the excuse he'd given everyone else, or she wouldn't have just let him leave, unchallenged. Marie wasn't the sort to back down from anything, especially not with him inside her, and if she'd thought he was running because of her, she would have said something to let him know how cowardly and unacceptable that was. Then again, maybe she had understood why he was running, and had just decided to let him go. She wouldn't want him to feel trapped, his Marie, and maybe his promise that he'd return one day had been enough for her…and maybe not. He'd never even called her, in all the time he was gone, had never even let her know he was alive or checked on her to see how she was doing. Would she be angry, hurt? Or would she come running, just glad to have him back with her? God knew he'd been thinking about this every moment of every day since he'd left her.
She'd seemed happy enough to see him, though, that first day back. She'd run into the hall within seconds of his arrival, and for a minute, as he'd waited almost nervously for her appearance, he'd thought he could see tears in her eyes. But then she'd come closer, and he'd decided he must have imagined it, because her eyes were shining with unconcealed joy and nothing else. She'd called his name, her voice all but shaking with excitement and maybe a little relief that he'd finally come back, or that he'd come back at all when she'd probably been wondering if he ever would. She'd thrown her arms around him, and while his heart had been going like a jackhammer at the contact, he'd instinctively hugged her back. He hadn't been able to help himself, though he'd known how dangerous touching her could be………and not because of her mutation, either. He'd never cared about what her touch could do to him physically; he'd only cared about what she could do to him emotionally. Logan just didn't hug anyone, ever, for any reason. For one thing, he'd never had anyone he cared about enough even to touch, but he'd also never wanted to reveal some weakness by openly caring for someone. The fact that he'd embraced this slip of a girl in a place where just about everyone single person he knew would see, the fact that he hadn't thought twice about doing so, hadn't thought twice about letting her get so close when he would never have permitted this from anyone else on the entire planet, scared the hell out of him.
She'd pulled back almost immediately, though, and he found himself wishing almost desperately that she hadn't. She'd looked so beautiful, even more so than when he'd first left. She'd been a child then, her face merely pretty and still round with a little baby-fat though her eyes hadn't held anything of childhood innocence even then. Now, though, she'd filled out a little more, her clothing showing off curves that just hadn't been there a year ago. Her hair was a little longer, and cut to be more than just schoolgirl cute. That streak of white, the greatest reminder of what she'd gone through, had framed her face and made her seem that much older. Her face had thinned and become even more striking, her eyes even more hauntingly beautiful. She was a woman now, though she was still too young, and everything about her, even the way she moved, reflected the changes she'd undergone.
His love for her had risen in him, then, and almost made him dizzy, and even when they were exchanging flirtatious banter about his coming back, even when she'd been saying that she hadn't missed him and he'd known she didn't expect him to believe her even a little bit, he'd been fighting a terrible urge to turn around and run in the opposite direction before he exposed himself completely. She'd been smiling at him the entire time, her emotions written all over her beautiful face, and at the same time he'd wondered how the hell he'd lived without seeing her for so long. What had he been thinking, to leave her like that?
And then Bobby Drake had shown up, walking with a confidence and possessiveness reminiscent of Logan's own, and announced that Marie was his. The upstart had even marked his territory in a way, using his mutation to freeze the hand Logan offered. Logan had merely shaken off the discomfort, of course, pasting a stoic expression onto his face and almost patiently reminding himself that he couldn't gut the kid with Marie standing right there. He hadn't even been bothered by Bobby's display, not then. The entire thing had been so silly and overdone that it hadn't occurred to Logan to be jealous, at least not until Marie had turned her smile to Bobby and away from Logan, and his entire world had come crashing down around his ears as he realized she was nervous, like a little girl caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She'd been afraid of how he would react, and that told Logan, more than anything else could have, that she felt something for this upstart, that Bobby wasn't just somebody she'd distracted herself with until Logan came back for her. She actually cared.
Oh, yeah. He'd been hit right between the eyes, with that one. Emotions going all over the place, and every friggin' telepath in the county must've been picking up on them. He just hadn't seen it coming, not that anything could have prepared him for the realization that Marie really wasn't his. Nothing could have made him strong against knowing that the one person he actually gave a damn about, the one person he would have given his life to protect, hadn't waited for him.
Bobby never knew how close he'd been to becoming a eunuch.
Thank God for Storm. She'd arrived just in the nick of time, probably keeping Logan from giving Bobby a real up close and personal view of what his own intestines looked like. She'd greeted him, distracted him just long enough for him to get control of the animal inside him. She hadn't known what she was doing for him, of course, and maybe he still would've gone after the upstart if Jean hadn't also chosen that moment to make an appearance.
Everyone thought he was in love with Jean, that he'd left because he couldn't deal with the fact that she was with someone else, or that he'd left to get some answers about his past but would still come back and take her away from ol' One-Eye sooner or later. Consciously or not, he'd certainly encouraged that belief, in the short time he'd been at the Institute. He'd flirted with Jean, hit on her almost mercilessly and done everything he could to make her enamored of him. Truth was, though, that he'd never cared if she'd fallen for him or not. He knew she hadn't, actually, and he was glad for that. He'd gone after her only because he could, only because it made Scott mad and nothing was more fun than making Scott mad…and because having everyone think he wanted Jean kept them from realizing that he was actually head over heels in love with the slender brunette all of them were deathly afraid of touching. Frankly, if Bobby hadn't been there with Marie, if Logan could have just claimed the girl and taken off again, he probably wouldn't even have thought twice about Jean. He was attracted to her, certainly, and he considered her to be as much a friend as anyone could be, but that's all it was, all it could ever be. Logan couldn't see anything but Marie, and maybe that wouldn't have changed even if he'd met Jean first.
Still, he'd kept his eyes on the redhead as she'd descended the stairs, knowing that it was better to pretend he couldn't take his eyes off her than to look over at Marie and see the way she was still hanging onto Bobby, her tiny fingers engulfed in his. Jean had practically glided towards him, one hand resting gently on the stair railing, whispering his name like it was the answer to a question she'd been asking all her life without ever really hoping to find a solution. He'd stared up at her, a little subdued by the sheer calm she was projecting, trying to shake himself out of whatever it was seeing Marie with Bobby had done to him. He called out Jean's name in return, and while he knew he sounded like a love-sick idiot, like he was pining for Jean rather than Marie, he wasn't concerned with her at all. His only thoughts had still been of Marie, though the girl hadn't realized it either because Bobby had pulled her away by then, taking her out of Logan's reach while he was too distracted by the woman he was supposed to be lusting after.
At least Jean hadn't asked him to talk about it. God, that would have made his descent into pansyness official. Even if he'd wanted to tell her the truth, though, she hadn't given him a chance. She'd exchanged a few words of greetings, flirted with him a little, and then taken off with Storm before he could so much as begin to collect his thoughts. She'd left him behind with all these feelings still roiling around inside him and no possible outlet, with a houseful of kids he didn't know the first thing about and the girl he loved under the same roof as him for the first time in a year, and gone off to track down some mutant who obviously didn't want to be found.
He'd gotten through that afternoon easily enough, at least. He'd managed to stay as far from Rogue as he could, distracting himself once more by prowling the grounds and making sure everything was as it should be. Then, when he'd gone over the house enough times that even he couldn't think of another reason to stay away, he'd gone and hidden in his room like a true coward. He'd known Marie was probably waiting for him, wanting to speak to him, but he also knew that he just wasn't up to it. He wanted nothing more than to be with her, to look at her and have her smile that special smile that she'd always saved just for him, and yet he realized that he wouldn't be able to control himself if she did. He wanted her too badly, and even though he'd forced down what he'd experienced when he'd seen her with Bobby earlier that afternoon, he didn't want to take the chance of doing something stupid that would alienate her forever.
He'd stayed in his room until everyone else had gone to bed and the house was completely quiet, and then tried to sleep himself. The nightmares hadn't let him, though, and even when he'd given up and chosen to just stay awake he hadn't been able to get her face out of his mind. Thoughts of her eventually drove him from his bed, and he'd wandered downstairs and into the kitchen, hoping to find something alcoholic to drink so he could knock himself out or at least go back to the regular old naked-in-a-public-place-while-green-penguins-dance-on-my-head type nightmares normal people had. Those he could have handled. Thoughts of Marie, he couldn't.
Of course, he hadn't counted on running into the upstart so soon. The Iceman had been perched at the kitchen island, gloomily eating a tub of ice cream. He'd looked up at the older man as Logan had entered, a myriad of very readable expressions crossing his face. Logan had known exactly what the kid was feeling, though it had never even occurred to him to just turn around and leave. Why should he go, just because his only rival was already in the same room? He'd gone into the kitchen, the small talk he offered his way of asking for a truce or at least of telling the kid that he wasn't going to rip him apart like he'd been planning to do earlier. Bobby had taken up on the unspoken treaty a little too eagerly, but even Logan wouldn't have thought the kid could be stupid enough to talk about Marie like that. Did the Iceman have a death wish? Telling someone like Logan that he wanted to get 'closer' to the girl Logan loved, and then bringing Jean into it on top of everything else, was even more self-destructive and dangerous than running in front of a speeding semi. After a conversation like that, Logan had been entirely ready to shove a pencil through his ear…or, better yet, through Bobby's.
He'd been almost grateful when Stryker's men had arrived, because battling for survival was something he understood. He didn't have to hold himself back from a fight like he had to with Marie and especially with Bobby, though the distraction the military goons provided hadn't been nearly enough. Every other time he'd had to fight for his life like this, every other time he'd been threatened, he'd survived by becoming an animal, by giving up what humanity he might have had so he could protect himself and not have to worry about his conscience when somebody else had to die so he wouldn't. This time had been different, though, because for once his becoming an animal had nothing to do with protecting himself and everything to do with protecting Marie. All he'd been able to think about was getting to her, saving her before they could take her away and maybe finish what Magneto had started. Nothing else had mattered to him but that.
So he'd crept around the manor, looking for Marie rather than escaping when he could have and then running down her attackers in a feat of what might have been heroics in another man but was really just him being pissed off and taking it out on people even Charles wouldn't fault him for killing. Then, because the animal inside him wouldn't let him leave when these guys were still walking around and invading his territory, he'd locked Marie in the tunnel and gone back for more. He'd known Marie would be safe with Bobby, and a bloody, life-or-death fight had been exactly what he'd thought he needed to relax and maybe get back a little of the self he'd been before he'd met Marie and developed this damned need for her.
But then Stryker himself had arrived, and it wasn't just a nice relaxing fight anymore. Maybe Logan had only stayed behind because he'd wanted to prove to himself that he could let Marie out of his sight and not go trailing off after her like some whipped puppy, but Stryker's presence had changed all that, had given him a chance to regain some of his past, to understand who he was and where he'd come from. Here was his chance to learn if, just maybe, there was something in him that could make him worthy of Marie in spite of everything else that he was, and then he could stop fighting himself and just make her his once and for all. Nothing had come of it, of course, because Marie had come back for him, Bobby in tow, and for her sake he had suppressed the questions inside himself and gone with her. She'd needed him, and since he'd once promised he'd stick with her and take care of her, since he loved her when he'd never loved anything or anyone before, her needs had to take precedence over his own.
He almost wished he hadn't gone with her. Sure, Stryker would have carted him off to be studied and prodded like those other kids or even shot him point blank, but at least then he wouldn't have had to deal with his emotions when Marie had given him back his dogtags. He'd stopped expecting to get them back a long time ago, and he wouldn't have wanted them even if he had. He now thought of them as being more hers than his, just like that part of him in her head was now hers, and having Marie give them up had hurt like hell, even to a man who would never admit to feeling pain no matter how bad it was. He'd wondered, then, if she'd been telling him that she'd moved on, that she didn't need his protection anymore because she didn't need him. Her begging him to stay with her earlier might only have been her way of protecting him from himself and nothing more.
He told himself that it didn't matter. He needed her, and even if the feeling wasn't as mutual as he'd once thought, he wasn't about to let go of her just because he was starting to wonder if she'd grown out of whatever it was she'd once felt for him. Walking away from her once had been sheer stupidity, but walking away twice would be suicide. Whether or not he'd lost her already, he knew perfectly well that she'd be gone for certain if he left her again, and then he'd be lost, because he wasn't going to live without her.
Had Jean known that, too? Probably. He'd seen it in her eyes, that day when the missile had blown out the back of the jet and taken Marie with it. He'd thought he'd lost Marie, had thought she'd been taken from him once and for all, and he still couldn't believe how ready he was to fling himself after her, to die with her so he wouldn't have to face that forever alone. Bobby must have had the same idea, because the kid had started struggling with his seat belt, trying to free himself as though he actually believed he could do something to save her. To this day, even Logan didn't know whether or not his "No!" had been to keep Bobby from throwing himself after her or to keep his own heart from shattering completely. Maybe both.
He'd glanced at Jean once that part of the danger was over, once Marie was safe again, and he'd known she was reading the turmoil in his thoughts and in his heart. Her mouth had tightened, her eyes becoming a little sad, and he'd realized that no matter how hard he tried to hide his love for Marie from himself, he'd never be able to hide it from Jean. He'd realized, then, that she'd probably known all along, and maybe that's why she'd pushed him away when he'd tried to kiss her later that day. Maybe Jean had known, even then, that he was using her to keep his mind off Marie, to make himself believe that he wanted the woman over the girl. Jean had never tolerated pretenses, and even though he'd hidden his feelings from just about everyone else, Jean hadn't bought into any of it. She had never let him hide the truth from himself, from her…especially not from Marie. Whether she was aware of it or not, the telepath had been challenging him to admit his love for the girl every time her eyes had met his, every time she'd spoken to him. She'd known how much he needed Marie even before he did, and from the start she'd been trying to force him to stop being such a damned coward and just admit how he felt.
Logan closed his eyes, groaning a little. Damn her, he thought. Why couldn't Jean have just gone along with the charade, helped him deny his love for just a little longer? They might all have been better off, if she had. He wasn't the best choice of a mate for anyone, let alone a girl who craved stability as much as Marie did. How would Marie feel, he wondered, the first time he started feeling claustrophobic again, the first time he started getting really edgy and wanted to take off? No matter how strong his love for Marie was, no matter how determined he'd become to stick around no matter what, running was simply part of his nature, and he was afraid that Marie would always be expecting him to walk away from her. Logan didn't want that kind of doubt between them, but he didn't know how he could convince her that he wasn't going anywhere.
Logan sighed again, knowing he should go find Marie and just deal with this whole mess. He hadn't really spoken to her since they'd come back from Alkali Lake, and he didn't want her to think he was avoiding her, even if that's exactly what he was doing. The tension between them was already bad enough, though she didn't understand where it had come from or why it existed at all. She couldn't know that he was having trouble looking at her because every time he did he was being tortured by guilt—guilt over how tempted he'd been to take what Mystique had offered when she'd morphed into Marie even though he'd known she couldn't be even a shadow of what Marie was, guilt for feeling glad that it had been Jean who'd died and not Marie. Just...guilt.
But one thing was certain: no matter how much guilt he felt over loving a certain slip of a girl who deserved better, he wasn't running again. Not ever. He wasn't going anywhere until he had Marie, and maybe it was finally time to do something about it.