Disclaimer: I don't own it, but putting Victor outside of his comfort zone is fun, so…
Boo
Victor hated carnivals. He even went so far as to avoid them entirely after Bradley. Until tonight, but that was only because he had a job to do. No matter that the job felt off, and he could smell the runt somewhere in the distance.
It damn figured that his first chance to cut loose in months would be ruined by an X-Geek field trip.
If this was a set-up, his handlers would pay in blood. Government, or not.
For now, he'd stick to the shadows and periphery. Observe. See how things played out and track what his targets were up to.
Victor heard the new presence before he even smelled the culprit; his eyes shot to the interloper.
The girl was tiny. Couldn't have been more than two or three, but whoever was supposed to be watching the brat was conspicuously absent. And unlike most people, who went out of their way to avoid him, the kid was gaping up at him with something akin to awe.
Hell, a toddler had gotten the drop on him. Maybe he really was getting sloppy in his old age. Or maybe it was the damned collar he was saddled with.
It didn't matter, really. The kid needed to go.
The feral stepped from the shadows.
"Boo." Victor grinned, flashing his fangs, hoping the scare the little creature off.
She shrieked all right, but rather than running off in terror, the brat broke into a fit giggles.
"Kitty!" She screamed, attaching herself to his leg in a surprisingly firm hug.
He beat down his first inclination to shake her off. He didn't want to hurt the kid, especially not with potential witnesses around what was supposed to be a covert op. He just needed to send the girl packing before he was infected by its obnoxious cuteness and tried to do something stupid, like find the thing's parents. Actually, there might be something to that.
The feral disregarded the idea almost immediately.
He didn't do cute, and he sure as hell wasn't a babysitter. And he refused to be responsible for the kid, no matter how temporary.
Victor tried again, growling lowly at the little girl.
To his relief, she detached herself from his leg. But instead of running off to mommy like a good little cub, she mimicked him with her own baby growls and even pretended to flex her tiny, nonexistent claws.
Victor shot a looked heavenward. He was not going to go look for the thing's parents.
Coming to his decision, Victor set off at a brisk pace. The cub followed. Or rather, she was waiting for him along the path in front of him.
With a long-suffering sigh, he scooped the gleeful girl up and took a tentative sniff. Yep, he'd found himself in the unwitting possession of a teeny, little mutant. Shit, with familiar X-Geek contact scents, at that.
"Clarice!"
Of course, said X-Men would choose that point to show up. Or rather, X-Woman. The one he'd kidnapped for Magneto years ago.
Dammit.
Time to play it off. With his shorn hair, he knew he didn't look the same as he did then. He had things to get done, and a confrontation with the woman, entertaining as it may be, would probably fuck with his plans.
He gladly passed the child along when the woman reached for her.
"Oh, sugar, we were so worried! What did I tell you about disappearing like that?"
The tyke looked contrite. "S'a no-no," she mumbled.
The woman took a single glance at him before turning back to the girl and checking the child over.
"You have to stay with us, when we go out like this. It's not safe."
The Rogue didn't stink of fear, so she obviously didn't recognize him. But she also wasn't the kid's mother. Babysitter, maybe. But if the girl was a mutant, her family might've ditched her. It'd explain why she was with Xavier's lackeys, at any rate.
Either way, Victor felt summarily dismissed. And it was what he'd wanted, but that just wasn't right.
"Found Kitty!" the child claimed, proudly.
"It's probably best if you stick to playing Monsters Inc. with Hank from now on, sugar," Rogue replied.
"He's Kitty!" the child insisted, pointing at the bemused Sabretooth.
Rogue took one knowing look up at him and quirked her lips, amused by the little girl's assessment.
Victor furrowed his brow when he realized he was wrong. The woman knew exactly who he was and wasn't trying to attack him or run off as quick as her legs could carry her.
Color me intrigued.
His job could wait a minute or five; it wasn't often that people piqued his curiosity.
"Well, yes, he's Kitty, but Kitty has to go now, sweetheart."
"Kitty!" The girl whined, reaching out for him. Damn, if he was gonna stick around if the kid started crying, though. He didn't sign up for this shit.
Rogue swiftly diffused the brewing tantrum.
"Do you want to say bye-bye to Mr. Kitty?"
The girl nodded into her shoulder.
"Would you mind?" the woman asked him.
Victor shrugged. The kid had already crawled all over him like he was her personal jungle gym. And if it kept the thing from crying and got him back to work faster…
"Thanks for keeping an eye on her, and you know, not eating her, Sabretooth."
Victor rolled his eyes, bouncing the girl a bit in emphasis. "A squirt like this is hardly even a snack."
And that was the moment his amnesiac little brother showed up and shot everything to hell.
"Get the fuck away from her!"
Now, Jimmy was ordinarily bright, except when he was in a rage. The adamantium must have started leeching into his brain or something because he chose to attack Victor even though he still had a kid to hold on to.
Dumbass.
Victor easily dodged the fist aimed at his face even as the word, "Wee!" was screeched into his ear.
Well, at least the girl didn't scare easy. Before he had a chance to stash the cub and things could get even uglier, his baby brother dropped to his knees in front of him.
Victor had not given the woman's energy-sucking skin its due. Rogue slipped her glove back on as she chastised the runt.
"Logan! He was helping! And you could have hurt Blink!" She rapped him on the back of the head for good measure.
Jimmy was still glassy eyed as he pulled himself up from the ground, his speech a bit slurred. Hell, her skin was probably the closest thing either of them could get to being drunk.
"I wouldn't'a hurt her! I was trying to get her away from Sabretooth, who still has the damned kid!" Jimmy shouted.
"I was handling the situation just fine before you showed up! Give me some credit, Logan."
The woman's hands were on her hips, and Victor wouldn't help but chuckle at the fact that his brother was the one getting chewed out by a frail, for once.
Victor's life had taken a turn for the weird today.
"I don't trust him. He's-"
The elder feral's attention was drawn from the bickering adults when the girl started tugging at his shirt. The girl pointed at Jimmy and whispered, "Mike Wazowski," before dissolving into a fit of giggles.
Victor didn't know who the hell that was, but he did know a put-down when he heard one. Heh. The runt, insulted by a toddler. He rightly assumed it had to do with whatever game she was playing that had her calling him 'Kitty,' rather than the runt taking up a new, even more ridiculous, name.
He didn't have long to ponder because it looked like the Maggia goons he was gonna off had decided to come to them. Well, there went 'covert.' His handlers would be pissed if this showed up on the eleven o'clock news.
Jimmy realized they had company about an instant after he did.
"Friends of yours?" the younger feral snarked.
Victor growled at the runt. "Fuck no."
Jimmy opened his mouth to retort before being summarily cut off.
"You two can have your pissing contest later, Logan," Rogue said.
They didn't have a chance to get into the whole 'enemy-of-my-enemy' spiel because the Maggia bastards realized they'd been spotted, and started reaching for their guns.
Victor took out the closest one before he dodged behind the nearest structure to get his bearings.
Seven against three wasn't bad odds, even if some of them were mutants.
He tucked the girl into his chest, shielding her under his coat. She made an interesting handicap, but he wasn't going to dump her where those dumbasses could shoot at her.
Fucking hell, he'd bonded with the thing over making fun of Jimmy.
Figuring he'd analyze it later, he spoke to the child.
"We're gonna play another game. Close your eyes and hold on."
Trustingly, the girl did as bid.
It went well to begin with. Victor dropped the next one before the man could get off a shot. Quick and clean wasn't his idea of fun, but he figured he could make up for it on the next job.
"Your eyes still closed?"
"Yes," she answered brightly.
"Good. Keep'em that way."
That lasted up until the next moment, when a shot rang out and the kid got scared. Then the world shifted in front of him and the kid, and he finally figured out the specifics of her mutation.
In the span of time it took Victor to blink, they were there one instant and gone the next.
A/N: This was part of a larger Sabretooth/Rogue story, but now that I'm editing said story, this bit doesn't really flow with the rest. It may or may not end up serving as the prequel/set up to that fic, but either way, this is got its own one-shot because it amused me.
Edit: This story serves as the functional prequel to the above mentioned Sabretooth/Rogue story titled "Stuck in the Middle With You". Now, go read that.
Also, on the off chance that this fic is eventually expanded, only this first chapter will follow the continuity of "Stuck in the Middle With You".