Reluctant Confessions

By Rebecca

a.k.a. ReluctantMarvelGirl

Chapter 1

Reluctance

Logan banged some bills onto the bar.

"Sam Adams," he growled to the bar tender.

He looked quickly around the shabby bar as his beer was placed unceremoniously in front of him. The place was filled with the low lives that seemed to gravitate towards this particular area of porn shops and cheap hotels surrounding the airport. What he wouldn't give right now to be just a normal guy trying to get drunk and laid.

Taking a swig of beer, Logan thought about all that had happened. No one could really blame him for running off, renting a hotel room and, now, attempting to get smashed. If you'd just been told that the same bastards who ruined your life had cloned you and then ruined her life as well you might be a little pissed, too. Professor Xavier had told him the whole story about Hydra, the scientists, the genetics, and the weapon training. He told him how the limited supply of Logan's DNA had resulted in the clone being a female and only thirteen years old at that. She'd been trained to be the new, improved Weapon X from the time she was conceived.

As much as this disturbed Logan, it was nothing compared to seeing the video tapes. Apparently some of the visual records of the X-23 (as the clone was called) had been retrieved and given to the Professor. Taking a grown man, lacing his skeleton with adamantium and training him to be the world's most dangerous weapon was one thing. Cloning that man and repeating the same process on the female child was another thing. Logan watched hours of footage of his clone being trained to be the perfect weapon. He watched more footage of the girl who looked just like him, sitting in an empty white cell, staring straight ahead, or sleeping on the hard ground. Now that this horrible scientific experiment had been given a face, Logan had to fight hard to keep a berserker rage from bursting out of him. It was like watching the whole ordeal happen to him all over again, except worse.

It wasn't long after this that Logan received word that X-23 had escaped the Hydra labs that had been her home since birth. With a dangerous killer like that on the loose, the X-Men went into action. After quite a struggle, X-23 was captured and brought to Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters. Seeing as she was being held against her will, containing her safely became something of a problem.

"Logan, you're the only one who can reach her right now," Professor Xavier had told him pleadingly. But he couldn't bring himself to enter the mansion's lower level hospital room that X-23 was being kept in. For one of the few times in Logan's life he was afraid. He was afraid of facing the fruit of Hydra's treachery, a life that had been created and ruined because of him. He was afraid of himself.

While passing through, Dr. Jean Grey had opened the door just enough for Logan to see inside. His heart stopped at the sight of the girl. She was really there this time, not just on a video tape. X-23 lay sprawled across the bed in a sort of stupor. She had obviously fought with all she had, but the psychic powers of Dr. Grey were too strong for her. Her green eyes pierced Logan's, and though she was subdued for the moment, he knew that her mutant heightened senses were still going strong. She was picking up his scent, sounds and look. She knew the man responsible for her life when she saw him. At that, Logan had fled, spurred on by guilt.

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After a many more beers, Logan headed back to the run down hotel where he'd rented a room. He was satisfyingly drunk, at least, enough so that he didn't want to kill someone at the thought of the small girl back at the Institute. But he rode up the shaky elevator to his room he started to sense that something wasn't right. He sniffed the air, but all he could smell was himself and the sterile, smoky essence of the hotel. He got cautiously off the elevator and headed to his room, sniffing and listening to whole way. Something just wasn't right…

Once inside his room Logan did a thorough search for whatever it was that was setting off the alarms in his head. His search proved futile. Stripping off his jacket and shirt he went into the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water. C'mon, snap out of it. You've just had too many beers, he told himself.

Before he could think up any more excuses a hard blow came down on his back sending his head crashing into the faucet in front of him. Blood began to flow freely from Logan's nose. Snikt. Logan popped his claws and spun around. A kick came to his side before he could get a look at his attacker. He lunged out blindly with his claws, but a swift punch and a kick landed him flat on the ground, face up. He stared into the face of X-23. She had a foot on each of his ankles and her claws pointed at his chest. She had two claws in each of her hands, as opposed to Logan's three. He watched as a claw came slowly out of the toes of each of her boots.

"Weapon X," she said.

"X-23," Logan gasped out. "Guess they trained you up right."

"At your expense, Weapon X," she snarled. "You took my life, now I'm going to take yours."

She moved her claws closer to Logan's chest and the claws in her feet started to dig into the front of his ankles. All Logan could think was that he'd sure picked a hell of a bad time to get drunk.

"I just want you to know," X-23 went on "that whatever hell you suffered from being experimented on, it's nothing compared to what I went through. I am a weapon, not a person. And now, because of you, my mother is dead, too."

Logan vaguely recalled the Professor telling him that a trigger scent had been placed on Dr. Kinney, the creator and surrogate mother to X-23. This trigger scent sent his clone into a berserker rage, causing her to kill whoever had it on them. X-23 had been made to kill her own mother. Granted, Dr. Kinney hadn't been able to really be a mother since the girl was trained to be a weapon, not a daughter, but this was sure to be a delicate area for X-23, to say the least.

Logan couldn't do anything by lie there. X-23's face contorted in rage as she lifted her claws to plunge them into his heart. Logan braced himself, but the adamantium of her claws never touched his skin. The girl just stood there, frozen in position. He was about to take this opportunity to escape when, suddenly, X-23 crumpled to the floor, her claws retracting.

Logan slowly got up from the now blood covered floor. He crawled over to where X-23 was huddled. She was breathing heavily and her eyes were wide.

"Oh, God," Logan sighed. He couldn't do this. He just couldn't. How on earth was he supposed to deal with an emotional thirteen year-old as uncontrollable as himself? He tried encouragement:

"Hey, kid, buck up, huh?" X-23 remained wide-eyed and bit her lip so hard that a trickle of blood came out.

"Hey, no, don't do that!" Logan reached for some toilet paper and dabbed off the blood. Her lip had already healed.

"See, kid? You heal up just like me. You'd have to do one hell of a job to hurt me."

X-23 trembled and looked down at her hands. Logan sat back against the sink. He'd come here to get away from the living, breathing fact that he had been cloned. Now here she was, and, even though she was a copy of him, he had no idea what to do. Surely everyone back at the mansion was going crazy trying to find the super killer with claws who had escaped. Maybe Logan could just clean her up, call the Professor and have the X-Men come and get her.

Logan got up and wetted one of the hotel's washcloths. He dabbed the girl's face and hair with it and tried to calm her down. It worked somewhat, but he still had to fight a small battle to get her to move into the main area of the hotel room.

"Now how on earth did you get out of the mansion and track me all the way here?" Logan asked, sitting X-23 down on the bed.

She didn't answer, but let her eyes dart around the room, often coming to rest on him. She seemed to be angry and scared by the fact that she hadn't been able to kill the Weapon X, but she seemed to be very fascinated by him at the same time (though she was trying not to show it).

"Oh, that's right, silly me," said Logan "you're my clone. No problem escaping the heavy security of Xavier's Institute and tracking me ten miles away."

X-23 started to bite her lip again. Logan heaved a huge sigh and dropped his head into his hands.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit all to hell."

He picked up the phone and dialed Xavier's. Scott picked up.

"Oh thank God you found her," he said when Logan told him what happened.

"Yeah, thank God," he answered sarcastically. "She nearly ripped me to pieces!"

"Yes, well, you'd better keep her there for tonight. I'm sure you are entirely capable of keeping her safe."

"What?!" Logan yelled into the phone. "Listen, Summers, I ain't got nothin' here for her to wear or eat or whatever. I have no idea what I'm doing!"

"Relax, Logan! It's just until morning. I'll see ya then," Scott said and hung up.

Logan slammed down the phone and growled loudly. He looked over at X-23 who was rubbing the wet washcloth on her hands.

"You hungry?" he eventually said.

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Logan and X-23 both sat on the bed, a bag of pretzels and some cookies between them. Logan sipped some coffee as well. He'd paid a bored looking girl at the hotel's front desk to go to the convenience store and get some food. The last thing Logan wanted to do was to take X-23 out into public. It was bad enough coaxing her from the bathroom to the bed. Plus, if he was her (which he was in a sense) he would make an escape attempt at the first opportunity.

"C'mon, kid! Didn't they teach you to eat at Hydra?" said Logan, exasperated. He put some pretzels in her hands.

"I promise I haven't poisoned them or anything. You can sniff them. See? I know you can smell that kind of thing. Now eat!"

Logan heaved a sigh of relief when she finally put a pretzel in her mouth, chewed and swallowed. He looked at the clock; two A.M. This was going to be a long night.

After X-23 had eaten, Logan attempted to get her out of her dirty clothes (she had still been wearing the hospital pajamas for the Institute) and into a t-shirt and sweatpants he had brought along. It could have been bad, but it ended up working in the end only because X-23 didn't pop her claws and Logan was bigger. For his clone, she certainly was a tiny thing.

Finally, she was in bed. The doors and windows were locked, but Logan guessed he'd have to keep watch all night. X-23 was probably already planning her getaway. He settled himself in the lone chair in the room and tried to stop his head from spinning. After all that he still couldn't quite sober up. Or maybe it was just the drama of the whole situation. Just as he was starting to relax, a small voice came from the bed.

"I think I'm a coward." Logan looked up.

"What did you say?" he said.

"I think I'm a coward," X-23 repeated.

"Why the hell would you think that?"

"Because I should just kill myself. It's not your fault they cloned you and it's not your life I hate. It's mine."

Logan stared at her.

"I don't think you should kill yourself," he said, but then mentally slapped himself. Yeah, he thought. That was a real meaningful reply.

"Why?" X-23 demanded. "If I stay alive Hydra can still find me, they can still make me kill people."

Logan left his chair to sit on the edge of the bed, where X-23 was laying.

"Listen, kid, I don't know what they told you at that place about Professor Xavier, me or any of the other X-Men, but we're here to help you. If you let us, we will do all we can to protect you from Hydra and the trigger scent. And we sure as hell won't lock you up in a cell. You can have a life, go to school, make friends, be with other mutants. It could be worse, X-23."

"Don't call me that," she said angrily.

"What, did Hydra give you a real name I don't know about?" Logan said.

"No, my mother did. Right before she died."

"Oh."

"She called me Laura," she said.

"Okay, Laura," said Logan. "What do you say to going back to the Xavier mansion cooperatively and giving us a chance to help you?"

"Will you be there?" she said.

"Yeah. I teach there and I'm one of the X-Men. You should know that." Laura thought about it.

"Okay, but I'm only giving you people one chance. If you can't make my life one worth fighting for, then I'm going off on my own."

"Deal," said Logan. Laura nodded.

A moment passed. Logan awkwardly scratched behind his ear.

"You warm enough?" he asked the girl. She nodded again, but made no signs of settling down to sleep.

"Well, get some sleep. We're getting up early tomorrow."

"Where are you going to sleep?" Laura asked.

"I'll just crash in the chair," said Logan, getting up to sit back down in it.

Laura snuggled awkwardly down into the pillows. She still wasn't sure how to sleep in a bed.

"G'night," Logan said turning off the light.

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The early morning sun found its way through the hotel's musty curtains and into the room, waking Logan. He'd tried to stay awake, but the events of the evening before had taken it out of him more than a fight with Sabertooth. X-23, now Laura, was still sleeping. The pillows had been thrown to the floor and the sheets were tangled around her. She obviously hadn't had a very restful night. Logan watched the little hellion for awhile and then headed to the bathroom, deciding to let her sleep for a bit longer.

After showering and getting dressed Logan left the bathroom to find Laura had just woken up. Her long hair was tangled and sticking out in strange places and she was rubbing furiously at her eyes.

"Well look who's finally decided to get up," said Logan. Laura scowled at him.

"A regular miss sunshine," he muttered to himself, then said "If you want to take a shower, the bathroom's open."

Laura didn't move. She probably didn't know how to take a shower. Logan found her shoes and gave them to her to put on. Then, draping his leather jacket around her shoulders he said, "C'mon, let's blow this joint and go find some food."

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After checking out of the hotel, Logan and Laura went to a nearby diner. As two stepped inside of the busy establishment they were greeted by the many smells and sounds of food being made, served and eaten. Logan felt something on his lower arm and looked down to see Laura clutching his sleeve. She'd never been in a diner before; much less a poorly kept one in a seedy area of town. After being led to a booth she still didn't let go, so Logan sat down on the same side as her.

"You okay, sweetie?" a concerned-looking waitress said to Laura.

"She's fine," Logan answered, a little too forcefully. The waitress set down their menus and walked off.

"Would you let go of me?" Logan said to Laura. "I can't read the menu!" She let go, but moved slightly closer to him.

When the waitress finally returned Logan ordered them some eggs, toast and sausage (which was about all the place served for breakfast). Now if only they had beer instead of coffee, he thought.

Once again, Logan had to help Laura to eat. She recognized the bread, but nothing else.

"Just eat it, okay?" he said. He regretted his demand later when he had to pull over his truck for Laura to throw up the whole meal.

On the way back to the mansion Logan could sense Laura's nervousness.

"Don't be scared," he said, trying to sound reassuring. "We'll go in through a secret entrance so you don't have to see a bunch of people."

It wasn't a long drive, but it sure seemed like it. Laura didn't say anything, just looked out the window. Logan assumed it was the combination of nervousness and having just thrown up that kept her quiet. He wasn't feeling too talkative either.