Hard as Nails
Summary: Those who live by the sword die by the sword. If your past is violence, violence will dog your steps until the day you die, even to the forests of British Columbia, where a certain lumberjack is walking alone.
Set: Approximately 1983, so while Logan is living as a civilian, and BEFORE he takes the Adamantium. Ignores the revisions of Days of Future Past (if any would affect this)
Spoilers: X-men Origins: Wolverine, X-men (in so far as some of Wolverine's power is demonstrated), Captain America: Civil War.
PLEASE NOTE: I am spoiler sensitive to several X-men films. I've only seen the two that this fic spoils.
Rating: T for blood and cruelty (not at the same time)
I would like to thank my Beta reader, who doesn't have a fanfic profile, but is RichardMashyman on twitter.
Logan strode out across the frozen ground, breath hanging in the air before him, spray can in his hand. The trees here were a nice size. Big enough that they felt worth taking, not so big that they held on like bastards and were a danger to every man in the crew, except him.
They'd be felling here tomorrow. He'd been sent out to scope it a bit and mark some trees up. Nobody else liked this job; scared of bears, wolves, cold… whatever. The other lumberjacks were happy to leave him to it. He knew they thought he was a weirdo, a freak, for not really mixing with them, for smoking cigars not cigarettes, for liking being out in the wilds on his own... They didn't know the half of it.
He lowered his spray can. What was that? Something had moved behind him. He turned.
Tearing, purple pain ripped across his neck. Red mist hung in the air in front of him. Hot blood poured out down his shirt and over the snow.
He gasped and felt blood course in to his chest. Shit. His airway was gone. His head was spinning. He staggered, grabbing at his severed jugular. What the hell? He couldn't see anyone, but he couldn't see much. Only a bullet. Only a bullet, it would clear. He coughed violently. Blood came up in to his mouth. He gasped and coughed again. His ears were ringing. Where was the shooter?
The second shot hit him.
He felt it shuttle between his ribs as he fell backwards in to the snow. He felt it tear the side of his heart off. It wouldn't kill him. The inside of his chest felt horribly still for a moment, then his heart started to beat again. He lay on the ground, gasping, as the tissue of his chest started to push the lump of metal clear.
These were not dumb little parabellum rounds. These were massive, heavy, sniper bolts, fired from something at least semi-automatic. So the shooter could be as much as a mile away. Probably less than that. The trees'd block your shots after a couple of hundred yards. But even at a couple of hundred yards, if he got up the second his chest closed up, saw the man shooting him right away and ran at him, he could take ten or twenty of those shots in that time. He didn't want to take one more. A headshot from a rifle that powerful might knock him out. He did not want to be caught.
He should wait, keep still. Snipers usually came to check their kills, or photograph them. To do that, he'd have to come closer, nearer to Logan's claws. That would give Logan the opportunity to gain the initiative. He tried to keep his breathing as shallow and slow as possible. He knew he needed oxygen to heal, but he also needed not to be shot again.
Whoever this bastard was he was patient. It felt like over a quarter of an hour, lying there in the snow, chest and neck still prickling and burning with healing, waiting for the sniper. Eventually, he heard footsteps approaching. Even now, the assassin came slowly. Logan made his breathing even shallower. Maybe the shooter had some idea of what he'd been sent to kill. But obviously not that much of one. He hadn't kept on shooting as he'd approached.
The danger was that the sniper saw that Logan's neck and chest were all there before Logan got the drop on him. Why had he had to fall lying flat on his back? He should have fallen on to his side, back to the sniper.
Something hard pressed in to Logan's leg.
Logan leapt to his feet, roaring, grabbing hold of the thing that had been poking him. Branch, not the rifle. Damn it, where was the rifle? A man stood before him, stepping back and drawing two pistols. The rifle was on his back. Not too big a risk of getting shot with it then. A mask covered everything below the sniper's eyes, and his eyes were covered with black camo paint. A panda fighting wolverine. Great. Why not just call the whole zoo?
The sniper hadn't flinched. He'd gone up to poke a man he'd shot in the heart, the man had jumped up and the sniper hadn't flinched. Logan pushed his claws out as the first pair of pistol shots hit him. They were dumb little parabellum rounds. They didn't even make his heart skip. They dug in to his chest and burned and smarted, but they didn't slow him down. The faster he ended this, the better. He threw a punch at the sniper's chest with his right hand. The sniper intercepted with his left forarm. Logan had expected the sniper to scream and recoil, he'd expected to feel his claws sink in to flesh. But instead he felt the grating of metal jarring against him. Armour. There had to be a soft bit somewhere. Logan threw his left hand punch for the man's chest. The man twisted back and put a shot in to Logan's leg. Even if it didn't stop him, it hurt. Logan yanked his right hand free of the sniper's left, tearing the sniper's sleeve. Metal. Right down to the fingers, all of the sniper's left arm was covered in metal.
The sniper put another bullet in to Logan's chest. Still a dumb little parabellum round. Logan drove his right fist towards the sniper's chest. Sheer force knocked the sniper back, but the angle wasn't good and the sniper's jacket felt like Kevlar or something. There had to be a soft bit somewhere. He'd go straight through the eyes if he had to. The sniper grabbed his right wrist. Logan pulled back. Hell, that man's grip was strong. He punched the man higher up in the arm with his free hand, but that was metal too. The sniper pulled inwards and grabbed for Logan's neck. Logan threw his head back, his left hand was stuck on – no, in - stuck in the sniper's arm. And it wasn't bleeding. There had to be a soft bit somewhere. He went lower. He drove his right hand in to the sniper's guts, just below the edge of the jacket.
The sniper went still, his eyes widened. Warm blood ran over Logan's hand. The sniper let go of him and fell to his knees. It was over. Logan pulled his claws back, stooped, and picked the sniper up by the collar.
"Go tell whoever sent you that the next one comes back in bits."
The sniper said nothing. He hadn't even yelled when he'd taken claws in his guts. This was creepy. He had a mutant yelling in to his face and he didn't even look scared. Logan threw the sniper to the ground. "Don't get up." The sniper just lay where he'd fallen. "Punk."
Logan turned and walked away.
When did you realise who the sniper was?
Please review, but please remember: I have only seen two X-men films!
I want to know what you think, but I also want to be surprised by X-men Last Stand and Logan
