"Not exactly what I had in mind, darlin'."
Logan huffs as the temperature continues to cool inside of the Blackbird. The weather of his home country has a rude way of reminding him just how cold it could get deep into the month of December. Not only does the chill go straight to his bones, but his bones being metal often give him an even chillier reminder.
"Oh come on, sugah. You said this was the best spot."
"I didn't know you'd drag me out here in the middle of the bleedin' night", Logan mutters under his breath.
The pilot - whom happens to be his abductor - carefully lands the Blackbird onto the open field of fresh snow. The gears sink a foot deep into the mound, as the bottom hull rests comfortably above the snow.
"So this here is the boreal forest in Saskatchewan, Canada", Rogue says unbuckling her seat harness. "Ah wonder if any animals are still awake this timah year."
"I wish I weren't", Logan continues to mutter, unbuckling his harness. "I said that this place was the best I ever saw, not 'Hey Rogue, lets fly twenty-two hundred miles to get a tree we're gonna throw out in two weeks' ".
"Well", Rogue playfully huffs back, paying no attention to Logan's genuine annoyance. "Here ah figured you for ah romantic."
Rogue stands up, adjusting her large, winter coat. She levitates from the cockpit to the opening hatch, waiting for it to press against the snow. Logan continues to sit, as he stirs for the cigar he had been craving since they flew over the Great Lakes. Lighting it, he takes in a deep drag, as though the only thing in this world that could relax him were smoke that could not kill him, even if he tried to let it.
"Ah see one already!" she shouts as the door finishes opening.
The air compression is lost faster than usual, as the force of Rogue's flight sucks out the remainder of warm air from the black bird, leaving Logan with sudden bitter cold, and a now unlit cigar.
Rogue flies towards the first of the trees, completely unfazed by the cold surrounding her. Her partial invulnerability gives her an almost instant resistance to harsh weather, where Logan's powers come with an unwanted adjustment period. Circling the pine tree like a blue jay, Rogue notices that this particular tree is housing some local wildlife.
"Aw shoot", Rogue says while prying open some pine branches. "Y'all got dibs on this one already, huh?"
"So we can leave after I cut this blasted thing down?" Logan shouts up at Rogue, with his claws already extracted.
"No!" she shouts back at him. "The heck's wrong with you, son? This pine is home to these here critters. We gotta find our own."
"You're kiddin', right?" Logan looks up in utter surprise. "We can just clean them out after I..."
"Logan..." Rogue says in a threatening tone.
"Alright, alright", Logan says, retracting his claws. "Just hurry up, would'ya? I'd like to get home before anyone back home realized what I did tonight."
Rogue smiles back at him, knowing full well how it would annoy him. Flying away, she can't help but let out a laugh at Logan's expense, hoping he'd losen up after what he and the rest of the X-men had been through lately.
She knew she could use some laughs for herself.
Now adjusted to the cold, Logan walks around the wooded area, puffing away at his cigar, wearing his normal yellow and blue uniform. Rogue didn't even give him time to change out before she dragged him out of the mansion by his arm. The mask he normally wore rests on his back, allowing his face to breathe. He also found it odd to wear it when he knew there was no impending danger. The mask put him in his mode automatically when he wore it, something he's seriously considering if Rogue doesn't find a tree any time soon.
Logan can't help but feel somewhat nostalgic about these woods. They remind him of the woods he wondered for what seemed like weeks before Heather and James Hudson found him. The memories before that time are too scattered and painful to reminisce upon, which - by default - makes his time with the Hudson's his earliest full, memories he'll ever have.
Before enough time passes, Logan has lost track of where Rogue wandered off to. His grumpiness goes wasted without an audience as he impatiently connects with her over their intercoms.
"Rogue, where the devil are you?"
She annoyingly giggles back at him, with a slightly static voice over the speaker.
"Why don't you come find me, sugah? I thought trackin' was ya speshalty."
"I lost track of your scent and the smell of that chicken you insisted on eating on the way up here. Quit playing games and tell me where you are."
"Fine, mistah poopy pants. Just head south east towards the river."
Rogue giggles to herself knowing Logan is going out of his mind at this very moment. She snorts at the thought that he'd rather be getting stabbed than doing this with her right now.
Kneeling down by the frozen river, Rogue caresses the ice with her gloved hand. Growing up in the south gave her little opportunity to play in the snow, which she knows she would have loved doing. She reacts to the white of snow and the cold of ice almost as a child would, like it were the first time.
"Pa sure would flip if his fishin' water froze up like this", she says to herself.
The most innocent thought muttered out of her mouth causes a flood of emotions to momentarily seize her body. The memories of hiding who she was all of those years, to hurting the first boy she fell in love with. The memories of fear and the damage of her powers were enough for those who cared about her understand, but no one knew the pain she felt when her own father disowned her for something she couldn't control.
Had he simply understood her, or even made the attempt to understand, maybe she wouldn't have had the hard life she had. Maybe she could have used her powers for good back home to make up for the trouble she had caused. She knew that her father only reacted before the town turned on him as well. She understood and hated him for the very same reason.
"Daddy..." Rogue whispers weakly. "Why'd ya do that to me. Ah was your flower, your baby girl. You...you said you'd..."
She softly cries to herself, forgetting she's in the middle of the Canadien wilderness looking for a Christmas tree. Her thoughts are so powerful, that they can snatch her from whatever reality she found herself in. The one person she wishes would understand that the most is the one who is intimidated by the overwelming force of her memories. She doesn't need him to confront them along with her, as he seems so destined to do. All she wants of him is to be there to watch over her when she is pulled away by them, to call her back home.
"Rogue, you okay darlin'?"
She didn't even hear Logan, who gave her plenty of curtousy stomps on the solid ground to announce he was near. She looks up at him, which kinda makes her smile for a moment, as that arrangement is the other way around.
"Yeah", she says looking back at the frozen river. "Ah'm just lost in mah memories again."
"I hear ya", Logan says, kneeling down next to her. "I find myself lucky I don't have many of those."
"You probably are, compared to mine", Rogue says. "Mah memories work me over somethin' fierce every time they pop in. It's like blacking out. "
"The sessions not goin' well with the professor?" Logan asks.
Rogue picks up a hunk of snow, holding it in her hand.
"Every step forward ah take..." she says, while throwing the snow. "...ah take two steps backwards. It's like mah mind is deadset on keeping me crazy."
"I know what you mean", Logan says. "Chuck thinks that I'll be able to piece together what happened to me by myself one day, but he's a bad liar for a psychic. I think we both know I'm not finding out nothin' until I find the answers myself."
Logan pulls out his half-smoked cigar, placing it onto his lips before Rogue speaks up.
"Logan, could you please not light that right now."
He looks at Rogue slightly surprised, then pockets the cigar. Its not what she said that surprised him, but the tone she took with him.
"Well, when you're done dippin' your feet in the water, I found a tree we can put in the family den. Lets go, Rogue."
Logan follows suit with the tone he uses when he's out on the field of battle with his fellow X-men and he's the ranking leader. Rogue always told him it was a sideways excuse for a Cyclops impression, but she knows that maybe she used up his only few seconds of compassion.
"Fine", she says. "Lets cut this thing down and git home."
Rogue follows him, looking down at the tracks he leaves behind in a pattern. She came up here this far to get away from the talk she needed to have after the fight she had with another of her teammates. Only this one she wanted to lose to, but his wanting to understand always overshadowed his ability to do so. Of all the hurts she feels right now, the person she opened her heart to after she sworn off doing so is the one taking the longest to understand the basics of her feelings.
She needs to get him to understand she is not wired like other women. If she's not well, she needs her space and has the ability to get all the space she needs. She knows a man has a hard time dealing with that, but she needs him to be the type of man who can. She needs to be able to float away from it all, to have her own air to breathe. The world she knew her whole life drained her more than anyone truly realized. She needs her man to understand that's all she needs, but he can't get past that yet.
Then before she went on another train of thought, she is harshly brought back to this reality by something she never expected to hit her.
The full-on blow of an adamantium-laced fist directly in her face.
The unsuspected hay maker-uppercut easily puts her on her back, with her nose beginning to bleed. The bitter cold taxed her partial invulnerability to its limits, leaving her vulnerable to this type of attack.
Rogue looks up at Logan, who has his mask on.
"Wh...why'd you...Logan...?"
Before she could finish, he quickly kneels over her, with his claws extracted and fixed on her throat. Rogue eyes Wolverine for a moment, unable to see his eyes behind the one-way lenses on his mask. The sudden shock of the hit mixed with the momentary horror of the position has her frozen in the middle of the snowy woods.
"Come on, darlin', get up", Wolverine snarls at her.
His claws start to press painfully against her skin, as his snarling continues at her. She can't believe what is happening right now, nor does she even realize that she's in total fear.
"Or are you too much of a daddy's girl?"
Her eyes widen instantly, as the rage begins to boil inside of her. The words from Wolverine's mouth stab deeper into Rogue than his claws ever could, which is a pain she has not felt in years. With a roar that nearly awakens all of the hybernating animals in Canada, Wolverine lifts his right claws in the air, ready for the killing blow.
Before he could land them, the gloved, left fist of Rogue's catches Wolverine on his jaw, sending him twenty yards away in the air.
Rogue flips up to the air, as blood continues to flow from her broken nose. She didn't see where he landed, but flew in the general direction of where he was lauched.
"LOGAN!" she shouts, echoing throughout the woods.
The sudden twist of events Rogue finds herself in instinctively puts her mind in a life or death situation. One minute she's following Logan on the snow, the next a rabid Wolverine was ready to take her head off without thinking twice.
She sees a spot where snow was imprented freshly by something the size of Wolverine's body. She lands, finding no footprints leading away from the area.
"Doggone you, Logan!" she shouts, barely keeping her voice from cracking. "What in the blue heck has gotten into..."
She is cut off by Wolverine's roar from above, as he comes down on her with clenched fists across her back. She drops to her knees as he lands beside her, extracting his claws once again. He was in a tree above her, and somehow managed to climb up from the ground before she got there.
"Get up", he snarls again. "I don't have time to babysit girls who cry cuz their daddy didn't buy them a pony."
She shoots up a killer's look in her eye, as if he meant her to do that. It gave her enough time to avoid the ferocious swipe of his right claws, and falling backwards away from the left set. She kicks his legs out from under him while lying on her back. Her strength isn't at full, but its enough to be able to put an emphasis that this is not funny to her at all.
"Logan, so help me ah will bury you up here", she shouts at him while standing up.
Rogue grabs his ankles, quickly whipping him against the tree he hid in, like an ax trying to cut it down. She recoils his body to do it a second time, and swings with the same force. Wolverine uses his claws this time to cut through the tree, using his momentum to free him from Rogue's grip. He flips in the air and lands upright, just to see the angered female mutant fly at him in full, charging speed.
Wolverine is barely able to slide away, but manages to swipe at her left thigh with his claw. The cut causes Rogue to scream in utter pain, as the three gashes mixed with bitter cold makes the wound that much more excruciating. Her powers normally dull either the wound or the cold, but together leaves her almost exposed to any type of pain. She slows and lands gingerly as the pain starts to shoot up the left side of her body.
At this point, Rogue is in the most vicious mindset she ever remembers being in. The sheer damage she intends on inflicting on Wolverine will probably force her into hiding, after she buries his body in the woods.
Rogue looks back at him, as he slowly stalks her, and does it deliberately. Wolverine is making no secret about his intentions, as his claws reflect the bright white of the snow into her eyes.
"Ah don't know what's got into you, Logan", Rogue says, taking off her blood-soaked, ruined jacket. "But ah'm gonna beat it, and everythin' else outta ya right NOW!"
Wolverine's roar is matched by the roar of Rogue's strength, as she uses it all to catapult her into the air, and instantaneously into Wolverine's ribs. They hit the ground, and skid across the muddy-snow trench they freshly dug out. Rogue's shoulder drives into the adamantium ribs of her attacker, driving him as much as her strength will allow her to. She begins to weaken, that is before Wolverine lets out one last taunt.
"That the best you got, orphan?"
Before her strength gives out, Rogue flips forward, mounting Wolverine's chest, pinning his arms down with her knees. What ensues is the most violent onslaught of blows Rogue has ever bombarded in her life. Punch after punch, elbow after elbow, headbutt after headbutt cause the ground to subtly quake around them. Rogue's attacks begin to make a hammering clanging sound with Wolverine's skull, which is now a foot deep into the ground. Her gloves start to rip at the seams, as the skin of her knuckles and forehead are ready to follow suit.
With a final barrage as her last reserves begin to empty, one of the final haymakers she lands on Wolverine's head snaps Rogue's right hand completely from her wrist.
She doubles over from Wolverine's body, consumed by the worse physical pain she has ever experienced. She screams as she is paralyzed by an agony not felt by many living creatures. With the torture her soul endures on a nearly daily basis, now mixed with equal pain in physical form, Rogue is ready to let whatever is about to happen, happen.
Her screams are replaced with tortured cries, as she can no longer take the pain. She hears movement from where she left Wolverine's body, then sees him walk over to her, claws extracted.
"Kill...me..." Rogue says behind tears, with her last ounce of strength.
"It's almost over", Wolverine says.
He kneels down to her, seemingly ready to end the misery she's in. Instead, he retracts his claws and removes his mask. Logan looks down at Rogue with a look not so much soft or comforting, but like a father teaching his child a very harsh, but necessary lesson.
"I understand you, Rogue", he says, removing his right glove. "And at the same time, I don't."
He reaches down and forcefully grabs her severly injured wrist, causing the pain to shoot through her body again. His grip on her is the tightest he can make it, forcing her to feel every ounce of the pain.
"Look at me, Rogue", Logan continues over Rogue's cries. "This is true honesty, this right here. This pain is the most blunt, the most brutal truth any of us can ever take."
With his gloved, left hand, Logan pulls down the sleeve of her jacket, exposing her bare skin. He lets her arm dangle from the grip on her sleeve for a moment, then violently snatches her bare skin with his bare hand. Her cries of pain are subsided when she realizes what he's doing. Logan's face remains stern, concentrated as she can feel his strength go into her.
"I ain't the type of person to speak on issues, girl", Logan says, his growling voice slowly succumbing to her mutant abilities. "You...you like to disappear for a few hours to clear your noggin', but I'm the type to take weeks off just for a few...moments peace."
Logan almost doubles over from the loss of energy, as Rogue's wounds slowly start to heal themselves at an accelerated rate. His grip on her wrist is still tight, however, as she can still feel the pain, while her hand tries to reattach itself.
Before that can happen, Logan jerks her arm back with enough force to sit her in an upright position, her eyes barely an inch from his. Rogue is fixed on his gaze in an astonishment that can only be comparable to experiencing a devine revelation.
"One thing...one thing we can't do, lady...is randomly crack up on a...moment's notice", he says starting to lose his composure, but his face as fierce as ever. "If we...if we do that...we're..."
Before he could finish, his grip slips and he doubles over.
"Logan!"
"...we're useless to the ones that...depend...on us."
"Wake up, sugah."
Logan's eyes slowly open, as his groan follows closely behind. He lays on the infirmary table in the Blackbird, hooked up to all of those blasted machines he finds unnecessary. Logan looks up at Rogue, who smiles back down on him.
"Tell me I dreamt all of that", Logan groans as he lays his head back down.
"Huh, trust me ah wish you had", Rogue replies. "But like the hard-heads we are, we lived through it."
Logan groans again, as he sits up. The pain of the fight is gone, but his healing factor hasn't returned enough to deal with the expected soreness of it all.
"How you feelin'?" he asks while slowly getting off the table.
Rogue chuckles as she helps him to his feet.
"And here I thought you were the one just wakin' up from a coma", she teases. "Well, my bones are fine, but thanks for askin'.
Logan huffs as he slowly walks to the co-pilot chair, with Rogue following behind him.
"That's not what I meant, kid."
Logan gingerly sits down, as the dawning sun starts to glare into the cockpit of the Blackbird. He sits back on the chair, refusing to turn it towards the windshield, at the sun. Rogue sits down next to him, keeping the chair and herself fixed on him.
"Ah...ah don't know, Logan", she says quietly. "Mah whole life, ain't no one ever hauled off and given me a whuppin' like that since...mah daddy."
Logan snorts, but causes pain doing it.
"And here I thought I was the one wakin' up from a coma."
She looks up with a scrunched smile.
"Shuddup", she loudly says, and playfully punches him in the thigh.
Unfortunately, her strength returned and her playful punch almost dislocates Logan's knee. He screams in agony as Rogue drounds out his scream with a laugh.
"That's for callin' me a daddy's girl when I was vulnerable, ya jerk", she chuckles at him.
"I was trying to get you to open up", Logan spits back, clutching his knee.
"You're a big baby", Rogue replies. "And for the record, ah was openin' up to ya before you sucker-punched me right in mah face."
Now Logan laughs, but in a softer tone as he tends to his pummeled knee.
"Well, I'm sorry, darlin' ", Logan replies. "I'm not good at talkin' things out with folks. I'm no Xavier. The only therapy I can offer someone in desperate need of it, is to get them to find themselves by fighting for their lives."
The light look on his face is met by Rogue's look, that shows a hint of hurt feelings.
"You really scared me, Logan", she says, now turning her head downwards. "Ah thought I was really gonna die out there, and by your hands."
"If you would have let that happen, it would have really been mercy, Rogue", he continues. "Your heart can help you tear this world in half if it needed to. It can't do it if it's always ripped in two itself."
Rogue looks back up at him, with her hurt all over her face.
"Ah can't help my feelings, Logan."
"None of us can, darlin'", he says. "All we can do is make time for ourselves away from our job, but we can't let our feelings get in the way of our job."
Rogue lets that settle in her for a moment, the slowly nods.
"Good", Logan says. "Now go cut down your tree and lets get home."
"Ah did already", Rogue says strapping into her seat, and starting up the Blackbird. "When you were out, I was still pretty steamed, so I took six of'em."
Logan has a puzzled look on his face, then agreeably nods to himself, resting his cigar in his mouth, which is bent in three places from the fight.
"Ah believe the 'No Smokin' sign just went on, sugah."
"I'm comin' back to reality", Logan says looking away form her, while pointing a threatening finger at her. "Leave me be."
Rogue smiles to herself, as the Blackbird slowly lifts from the ground.
"Thank you for pulling me back to mine, Logan", Rogue says.
"I bet you'll pull yourself back a lot easier from now on", he says as he lights his broken stogy.
"Ah sure as shoot probably will, hun", she says back, opening a vent for his smoke.
"Good", he says while puffing smoke and the Blackbird disappearing into the blue sky. "That's one less problem for the Cajun to screw up on."