Logan's POV
I rubbed the bridge of my nose as I slowly sat up in the dank, stale, and seedy motel room I was currently occupying. I let out a gruff grunt as I reached for the beer bottle on the nightstand, swigging back the little remaining spit contents at the bottom. I heard a light, female moan behind me as I glanced over my shoulder to peer at the red head that had just stirred from her sex-induced coma she had fallen into. She rolled onto her stomach, her naked ass peeking out from underneath the sheets as she traced a finger up my back. I turned my head to face forward again with an idle roll of my eyes. Why did they all want to hang around afterward? I was sure I tried my hardest to not come across as even a sliver of a nice guy. Then again, I could've kicked her out even before she had time to fall asleep. Dammit.
"You can go now," I said gruffly as I stood from the bed. I bent down for a moment to scoop up my jeans from the floor, slipping a foot into each pant leg. I reached for the half-spent cigar perched on the ashtray on the table in the corner of the room, removing a lighter from my jeans pocket. The woman stuck out her bottom lip like a prepubescent teenager.
"Aww, come on Wolvie, kicking me out already?" she asked, brushing a hand through her red locks as she rolled to her back so that her breasts were exposed.
"I told you not to call me that," I said with a light growl, lighting up the cigar and taking a few puffs of it until I was satisfied with the amount of orange glow emanating from the tip.
"I don't get it…that's your name, well your X-Man name anyway," she said with a wide a grin as one of her fingertips rose to her mouth and her teeth idly began to chew on one of her fingernails. Yeah, she was trying to get a round two out of me. Truth be told, I saw her in that bar last night and the fiery red hair and equally fiery attitude reminded me somewhat of Jean. Jean Grey, the woman who never was, never will be my woman; still consumed my thoughts and I preferred to torture myself by occasionally sleeping with women that reminded me of her. Pretty fucked up, right? What's worse…I couldn't even remember this chick's name, and her presence was starting to irritate me. I'm a fucking asshole, but there isn't a lot to be positive about these days.
"Yeah, well, that was a long time ago," I said as I gathered up her clothes from the floor, biting down on the stogie in my mouth to keep the tobacco flowing as I did so. I tossed the clothes to her on the bed, nudging my head towards the door.
"Seriously, Red, I have somewhere I need to be," I said, knowing I had absolutely nowhere to be. I watched as the woman's face contorted into an offended expression as she snatched the clothes from the bed, her body standing up before she hurriedly dressed herself. Once she was finished, she walked up to me and pointed in my face. I felt a low growl start to form in the pit of my throat at the aggression boiling up from her.
"You don't even know my name do you?" she asked as I furrowed my eyebrows, taking a few puffs of the cigar.
"What do you want me to say here?" I asked in all honesty, as a hand suddenly collided harshly across my face. I let out a grunt, decided to let that one go, and in turn, cracked my neck instead.
"You're an asshole!" the woman yelled as she snatched her little purse thing from the nightstand, her form storming towards the door before she whipped it open so harshly I thought she was going to put a hole in the cheap wall plaster. I followed and waved my hand out the door at her.
"Call me!" I yelled at her, watching her hand fly into the air to give me the bird as she walked away. I smirked to myself as I closed the door, turned, and pressed my back to it. I really was a fucking asshole. This was my life now. The X-Men had been disbanded for years now. It was a gradual process after members left for one reason or another and the continuing mutant backlashes never seemed to stop. Eventually an organization was created called the Humans Against Mutants Authority, which put a proverbial target on any mutant's head to be hunted down and taken to a facility.
They described this facility as rehabilitation, a safe haven for mutants as they searched for a cure, but kept us off the streets, so we wouldn't, I don't what they thought, I guess so we wouldn't accidentally hurt humans? Like they aren't doing that enough to themselves. They called it rehabilitation, but what it actually was, was executions. It caused this wide spread panic amongst the mutant community and we all found ourselves hiding our powers and succumbing to the shadows to avoid being labeled a mutant and hunted down.
I let out a sigh as I walked to the nightstand, staring down at six empty beer bottles. Guess it was time to head to a bar, because that would just not do. I let the cigar rest on the ashtray just long enough to slip the wife beater, flannel shirt, and leather jacket onto my form. I sat on the edge of the bed to do up the laces on my boots and reached for the cigar once more, exiting the motel room.
My motorcycle rumbled into a parking spot at the first bar that I passed. Wasn't difficult to find bars on Canada's back roads, and the seedier and less occupied, the better. As I walked into the bar that was so cleverly named "Bar", in red neon lights that were beginning to die, I couldn't help but realize how my life had come full circle. I had become the lone wolf I was prior to joining the X-Men, a nomad, a wanderer, never settling in one place and just constantly moving. I entered the establishment and immediately surveyed my surroundings. Two men were seated at the bar and a few others were littered through the main seating area at various tables. Perfect. I walked up to the bar and held up two fingers.
"Two Coors, and keep 'em comin' till I tell you to stop," I said to the bartender as he popped the caps off the bottles and slid them towards me. I took the necks of the bottles into one hand as I moved through the sea of tables, settling for one at the back corner of the bar where I could keep an eye on everyone. I sat down in the chair with a grunt and immediately began nursing one of the many beers I'd cycle through tonight.
It was when I was on my fifth beer that she entered the bar. Just the fact an attractive woman entered this bar was enough to catch my attention, but more than that was the smell that consumed my nose when she entered. I flared my nostrils as my canine like senses attempted to make sense of her scent. She smelled like a mutant, but not a mutant…something…else. I raised an eyebrow in curiosity and decided to keep my distance for the moment and simply keep an eye on her.
As I watched her for the next hour, all she did was sit there and sulk. One would think she just found out her dog was shot, the way her shoulders slouched forward and her entire face seemed to be melting. I supposed I hadn't looked much better myself, that and 90% of the patrons in this establishment were here for the exact same reason, to drink away their woes. I rose from my chair to take a leak in the bathroom and brushed my way past the mystery woman who just had one of the patrons approach her and began to flirt with her. I happened to catch her saying to the man,
"My date is in the bathroom," before I pushed my way through the door of the men's restroom, littered with urinals. I took one glance around and realized there wasn't another living soul in here which meant, of course, she was lying to get the guy off her back, or she swung the other way. I smirked to myself, taking care of needed business.
When I emerged from the head, I reviewed the happy couple ahead, noticing that things had escalated quite quickly in the mere minutes I was away. I could practically smell the anger swelling up within her, and seeing as I had no idea what kind of powers this chick had, I decided to intervene before she did something incredibly stupid and gave herself all the wrong kinds of attention.
I proceeded to pretend that I was the lied about date that was in the bathroom and made conscious effort to lure her away from everyone else. She was mouthy, stubborn, and oozing with angst. Seemed oddly familiar, but eventually she came around when I whispered to her that I knew what she was. When we made it back to my table, I caught a whiff of something that somehow snuck its way past my nostrils before. Could have been the fact that just the mere scent of her was making my dick do a dance within my jeans, which had never happened before, that completely distracted me.
No, this scent was entirely too familiar to me and I had to lean closer to get a better vantage point. I wanted to be sure, but yeah…fucking adamantium. Why did this woman smell like adamantium? I hadn't known at the time that I was about to get my answer as and his minions approached our table. I had been successful for over a year now of remaining in the shadows in every bar I went to, avoiding any cause of a scene. All it took was one hour of being around this blondie and my record just went to complete shit. Just…perfect. I took care of half the men as swift as my muscles would carry me, not expecting the woman to get up herself and join in. It was when she felt threatened, that the claws came out. When I say 'claws came out', I meant it in the literal sense. Five curled adamantium claws crept their way out from her fingertips and slashed at her current attacker. Fuck. Fuck. Double fuck. So much for keeping out of the HAMA's radar.
We made it out of the bar and onto my motorcycle; I, letting her know that we needed to talk about her little claws. I drove us far enough away from the bar that we could have a moment to talk, because if I was going to stick my neck out for this woman so she wouldn't get killed, we needed to get a few things straight. I went off road and took us a ways into the woods before turning the engine off the bike, kicking out the kickstand and dismounting. The woman got off the bike and immediately backpedaled, looking around her.
"Are you planning to kill me now?" she asked, immediately getting on the defense as I furrowed my brows in confusion.
"Are you kidding me right now? I just saved your ass, killing you would somewhat defeat the purpose, don't you think?" I asked and she crossed her arms over her chest.
"I had it handled. They would not have killed me," she responded and I had to smirk to myself, this chick was clueless. She must have been a newbie.
"I don't doubt that, but if you were caught by HAMA, I woudn't bank on you breathing much longer after that," I responded and her face morphed into confusion and curiosity. Yeah, she was definitely a newb.
"What the hell is a HAMA?" she asked and I shook my head before reaching a hand to rub idly at the back of my neck.
"The Humans Against Mutants Authority. They hunt them down, kidnap them, and eventually kill them. What you did back there has completely put you on their radar, we're not even safe staying here that long. Why the hell did you even do that?" I asked, irritation laced through my words.
"I have the capability, that's why. I had no idea there was this lynch mob organization against mutants, I'm…not from around here," she said as her eyes dropped to the ground as I was getting more annoyed by the minute.
"Clearly," was all I said and her eyes immediately shot back up to me, her form taking a few steps toward me as my body stiffened in defense.
"Look, Pal…I appreciate you getting me out of harm's way and all that jazz, but I'm good now…I'll take it from here. Sayonara," she said to me as she offered me a salute and turned on her heel to walk away. I couldn't let her leave before knowing about the adamantium, that just wasn't going to fucking happen. I lurched forward and grabbed her by the arm.
"Where did the claws come from?" I asked, not offering the information that they were in fact adamantium or giving any hint at the Weapon-X program. I could have just been losing my mind. I was older, maybe my sniffer was on the fritz. She turned to look down at my hand on her arm and idly growled. A genuine…growl, that was interesting. She yanked her arm from my grasp with a huff.
"I don't…know," she said, dropping her head in defeat.
"What the hell do you mean you don't know; how do y-," I started to say before she quickly interrupted me.
"I can't remember. Only reason I even know my own damn name is because I ran into a guy in an alley back home that I apparently pissed off before I lost my memories," she stated simply and my eyes grew wide as saucers. Jesus…had Weapon-X started up again? I shook my head, attempting to pry for more information.
"Pissed off?" I asked and she rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, I don't know. something about an emerald I stole from him that he wanted back? I guess I'm a thief," she said as she idly shrugged and I started to roam over the woman's body with my eyes, insanely curious if all of her bones were laced with the metal, just as mine were.
"What are your powers?" I said, furrowing my eyebrows and taking a few steps forward. She quickly held up both her hands in front of her in defense.
"Oh, no. No…no. I've already told you enough. This is over," she said, turning on her heel and started to walk again. Any amount of information about Weapon-X I could possibly gain from this woman at this point was not fucking worth it. To hell with her.
"Fine! Have fun walking in the cold, in the dark that's about to happen in an hour," I said, standing still for a moment as I watched her continue to walk away. She raised a hand and idly waved at me.
"Oh I got that covered, don't you worry!" she yelled to me over her shoulder. My hands clenched into fists at my sides. Infuriating, absolutely infuriating.
"Don't say I didn't warn you when you're strapped to a gurney having hot pokers shoved into your ear holes!" I yelled back to her, moving to mount my bike with a roar of the engine. I peeled tires and kicked up dirt as I drove out of the woods, watching her figure get smaller and smaller in one of my side mirrors. I shook my head back and forth, my hands gripping so hard to the handlebars my knuckles were turning white. I peeled out onto the road again, pushing the bike to a near hundred miles per hour in an attempt to put as much distance as possible between me and that psycho bitch blonde. She thought she was so tough? Fine. Probably shouldn't be trusted with those claws anyway out in public, maybe it would be damn good thing if the HAMA found her. I thought this to myself as a completely blacked out SUV zoomed past me in the opposite lane, going straight in the direction that….shit.
I grinded my teeth together, knowing full well any blacked out vehicle speeding down a rural side road at this point in time, could be no one else but the HAMA. I didn't think they'd actually act that fast. They were getting more ravenous for mutant blood. Son of a bitch. I gave out one growl before I slammed my fist onto one of my handlebars.
"SHIT!" I bellowed, deciding finally that I couldn't let this woman be captured by these sociopaths and if she had in fact been put through the Weapon-X program or something similar, I could potentially get some serious information out of her. I gritted my teeth as the three infamous claws unsheathed themselves from within my forearm. I leaned to one side and slammed those claws into the ground so I could make the bike do a quick 180 degree turn as I pumped the throttle and went as fast as the bike could handle to get back to her.
As I got closer, I could see the SUV parked in the distance. Shit. I turned the bike back into the woods, gritting my teeth as branches hit my face left and right and I could see several figures running through the forest, all of them being led by a figure with blonde locks. I turned the bike so that I could cut off the woman's path, my arm out stretched as I neared her and grunted as I took all of her weight on with my right shoulder hoisting her up she could move her legs to straddle the bike behind me. I felt her body land on the seat and then felt several fists slamming into my back. I growled as I looked at her over my shoulder.
"Christ, woman!" She glared on at me, as we hit a log, almost causing her to launch off the bike as she threw herself forward to wrap her arms around me with a grunt.
"I had that! I was luring them to a spot so I could rip all their fucking throats out!" she yelled in my ear and I growled as I shook my head.
"Shut up and stop with all the ripping out throats bullshit! That is exactly why we need to escape, again!" I bellowed, hoping this woman knew that I had been 5 seconds from abandoning her ass. If it weren't for my years with the X-Men, my conscience may not have been as kind to her.
"Who do you-," she started to say and I lifted one of my hands up, pointing a finger in the air for her to see.
"Seriously, be quiet or so help me God, I'll de-claw you myself," I said to her, and I meant every damn word of it.
"I'd like to see you try," she muttered under her breath and I felt a growl emanate from the very core of my soul as I gripped the handlebars. This chick had no fucking clue how much I could try, she had no idea I was a mutant, and furthermore, had no idea that I had a few claws of my own. A smug, shit-ass grin spread across my face. It was nice always having the upper hand.
