Chapter 2: What the Hell
Pairing: Wolverine/Sabretooth
Rating: NC-17/M
Feedback: Yeah, that would be good.
Notes: Takes place during the bone claw era. Sabretooth escaped from custody at the X-mansion as described in 'Red Zone', but in this timeline, he was never re-captured.
Summary: Secrets have a nasty habit of sneaking up on you...
Heather Hudson hadn't said why Kyle was in Toronto instead of with the rest of Alpha Flight, but she had finally contacted him, and Kyle had agreed to a meeting. Logan had a number, but that was all. When he figured out how to approach Kyle about the 'hey kid I found your dad' thing, he was going to call him.
Creed, who had been no help whatsoever so far, was trailing about ten feet behind Logan and looking at the buildings along the clean, tree-lined streets as if casing them for future B&E.
Maybe he should have just ditched Sabretooth and come alone. It wasn't like Creed had ever shown much interest before, and he'd known about Wildchild long ago.
Logan's shoulders were hunched forward, and his hands were shoved deep in the pockets of his leather jacket. It was too hot for the jacket, but he didn't want to take it off.
"Hey Logan!"
"What?"
"Are we gonna circle this burg again, or have you decided what you're gonna do?" Creed asked.
Logan stopped walking.
"Y'know what? I have. YOU took this long t' tell 'im, YOU figure it out."
Creed chuckled to himself.
"Took ya long enough."
Logan favored him with a withering glare.
"What's your plan?"
"New Jersey vs. Toronto, tomorrow night."
"Toronto hasn' touched the cup since '67," Logan pointed out, dubiously.
"Then they're about due, right? 'Sides, it's a home game."
Logan shrugged.
"This is gonna be a lot harder'n you think, 'dad'."
"Yeah, keep remindin' me," Creed snapped.
/He waited to do this until I could come with him as backup/ Logan realized. /Not so tough after all... Or maybe he's just using me to get Kyle's trust./
"Creed?"
"Yeah?"
"Kyle's a good kid. Just thought you should know," Logan fished a cigar out of his shirt pocket, and lit it.
"Huh," Sabretooth looked down at Logan thoughtfully. Had he just been reassured, or threatened?
Wildchild stepped off the downtown bus amidst a blue and white crush of Toronto Maple Leafs' fans. Kyle stood just taller than he thought he was, in scuffed tan work boots, comfortably loose blue jeans, and an incongruous purple t-shirt with cut off sleeves. He pushed a hand through his shaggy blonde mane of hair, tucking what he could behind one ear. -Maybe he should have tied it back? ...Nah. He was skinny, and looked like Jay of 'Jay and Silent Bob' fame cast as the lead in 'Teen Wolf'. There was no getting around it.
Kyle looked around, wanting and not wanting to find the people he'd come to see. He couldn't see them yet, and he couldn't catch their scents, but his 'predator nearby' instincts were going crazy.
Wildchild's history with Sabretooth was sketchy at best. Still, Logan's history with Sabretooth was much worse, and he was here anyway. What did that mean? Was Wolverine here just for moral support, or to keep Creed from destroying him?
/Fuck it./
Kyle lifted his head, and tested the breeze, walking around outside of the hockey stadium. Hot dogs, beer, cotton candy, ...wet dog...?, tightly-packed humanity, and a faint whiff of Freon came to him. And then...
They were there, right there. Standing at the foot of the concrete stairs that led into the arena. His harshest teacher, and...
/My father. Probably./ Kyle swallowed.
Sabretooth was really big and scary. He was unspeakably ripped, and the sideburns that Kyle had only recently been able to grow properly -at all- looked like they could leave severe beard-burn on contact. His light blue eyes were deep, confident, and dangerous, the eyes of something that had spent far too many years at the top of the food chain. Wolverine didn't seem too impressed though, and Kyle found that reassuring. With people moving all around the three of them, Kyle felt like they were alone, and he was walking through a tunnel to get to the stairs.
"Hi Logan," Kyle called, finally. Logan raised a hand in greeting, and tipped his hat up far enough that his dark eyes were visible in the shadow beneath it. Then Kyle looked at his father, and Creed looked at his son, and neither one of them moved. Creed had known he had a son in Alpha Flight, but he'd never copped to it, and to have him HERE, five FEET away, doing a deer-in-the-headlights impression...
And the kid looked just like him. Younger, a bit shorter, but Creed knew that face, and he knew his own blood when he saw it. Logan watched the exchange with a glint of satisfaction at Creed's shock. -'Bout time the jackass realized this was serious.
Kyle's appearance had changed from the last time Logan had seen him. Whatever he'd been taking to look more Human, Kyle had either stopped taking it, or he'd finally built up a tolerance. Kyle wasn't ugly, exactly, and he certainly hadn't reverted back to his original appearance, but his fingernails looked a lot like Creed's claws, and the tips of his fangs were noticeable even with his mouth closed.
"Kyle," Sabretooth said the word as if he was tasting it, fascinated.
"Uhh... ...dad?"
"Yeah," -more silence and staring. Creed started grinning. "You wanna go in, or what?"
Kyle blinked.
"Yeah. Right."
They got to the rink at about the time the anthem ended, and Logan went off in search of beer, leaving an empty seat between Kyle and Creed that soon became a gulf. Creed thought he caught Kyle sniffing him curiously, but he wasn't sure.
"Got somethin' you wanna ask, kid?" Creed asked, not quite looking at him.
"Nah," said Kyle, quickly.
"Good. Then I won't tell you anythin'."
/He's hunting Logan/ Wildchild thought. /I can smell it on him. Logan can't have missed this. Why is he playing along?/
They watched the game without talking for a while. New Jersey was playing well, but the Maple Leafs' goalie had them stopped cold. If only the rest of the team would get in on the act, they might just win. Kyle's eyes followed the quick, erratic movements of the puck flawlessly. Logan returned with three tall plastic cups. Kyle was surprised. He was of age, but he hadn't expected Wolverine to remember. Still, a beer would taste awfully good right about now...
The Maple Leafs came close to scoring, but were stopped by two red-and-black jerseys just short of taking the shot. Logan scowled at the rink disapprovingly. Kyle bought some malt balls off a passing vendor, and decided to get stupidly sugar-high.
The game continued.
"What the hell was that?" Kyle muttered, watching 'Jersey whisk the puck out from under Toronto's sticks.
"Bad footwork," Logan explained, professionally. "Watch the right wing's skates when 'e tries to change speed."
"HEY, he crosses his feet funny! Does he know he's doin' that?"
"Has to," shrugged Logan, "notice how he always tries ta pass right before he does it?"
Just then, the roar of a fight crowd rose in a wave from the far end of the rink, as one of the Maple Leafs grabbed a fistful of a Jersey Devils' shirt, and was high-sticked on the side of his helmet by a third player. The Maple Leafs couldn't let this pass, of course...
"Now it's getting good," said Creed, watching the fight below with keen interest.
Penalties were traded, two players were benched, and the game continued. The first period was soon over, with New Jersey leading twelve to three. Kyle followed Logan out into the chaos of the crowd. A steady roar of confused echoes came back to him from the stadium's concrete ceiling and walls, and Kyle's ears flattened slightly in defense. He caught up to Wolverine in the men's room, something that didn't seem to phase Wolverine in the least. Close enough to talk, Kyle found that he couldn't get his tongue unlocked.
"Spit it out," Logan suggested, calmly. Kyle started, not the best of things to do while one is taking a piss, and blushed furiously.
"This isn't... um... what the hell's going on, Logan?"
"It's like I said," Wolverine shrugged, zipping up, "-when I figure that out, I'll let ya know."
"But-" Kyle paused to follow suit, "-this isn't right. Why did he suddenly come see me, hell, why did he stop trying to kill you?"
"You wanna go back to the game or not?" Logan asked.
"Well, we'd better, right?"
"Or what?" Logan pointed out, eyebrow raised.
"Or-" Kyle stopped. /Or the puppy gets beat?/ Kyle thought, ashamed of himself, /-way to keep Logan's respect, Einstein.../ "..."
"Come on," Logan steered Kyle towards a hotdog stand, one hand a solid and comforting presence on the younger Mutant's arm. Several hotdogs later, Kyle was feeling a bit better, though he still thought he'd acted like a wuss.
"Wildheart, you know what it's like to be kicked in the teeth. Stick with Creed, and that may well happen. On the flip-side, how many of our kind have wished they had a father who understood what it meant to be a Mutant? It's your call, kid. This isn't a trap."
"I'm, uh, going by Wildchild again," Kyle told him.
"Fair enough," Wolverine shrugged.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but... what's your stake in all this?"
"Interested third party?"
"No, I mean..."
"Look, you sort out what you're gonna do with Creed, and I'll do the same, capiche?"
"Right," Kyle agreed, "-and... however this turns out... thanks for finding my dad."
"Yer welcome," Logan smiled, with his fangs.
"-You don't happen to know who my mom was, do you?" Kyle asked, hopefully.
"No."
"Just checking."
"Let's go back in. Next period's about to start."
It was dark outside when the game ended, and amid the angry hubbub of disappointed Maple Leafs' fans, Logan, Kyle, and Creed walked out the main gates.
"Told ya they would lose," Logan grinned at Creed.
"Next time remember to bet cash on it, Miss Cleo," Creed sneered.
"One of us watches too much daytime TV," Logan observed.
Kyle laughed.
"What's your excuse? Still wanderin' around pretending you're a beatnik?" Creed retorted.
"At least I hold books right side up," shrugged Logan. Creed took a swipe at him, but Logan ducked with practiced ease. Kyle jumped back just in time, then caught up, putting Wolverine between himself and Sabretooth.
"Hey Kyle! What do you do?" Sabretooth asked, suddenly.
"Huh?"
"I'm an assassin, and Logan here thinks he's gotta membership to club x. What. Do.
You. Do?"
"Oh, I'm traveling with a band right now."
"You're a roadie?"
"Stage crew," Kyle fudged, flawlessly.
"What's the name of the band?" Logan asked.
"'Captain Crash', like the Bon Jovi song."
"Yer kiddin', right?"
"That all they play?" Sabretooth asked, dubiously.
"Nah, they play a lot of their own stuff. Club gigs, they usually end up doing Van Halen or AC/DC, maybe 'Brick House'."
"Lynard Skynard?" Logan asked.
"Umm..."
"Update yer fuckin' vinyl, Logan," Creed snorted, "-have you even heard of Mettallica?"
"The Doors," Logan countered.
"That's a gimmie. Ramstien?"
"You always did have a thing for German. The Eagles."
"Hotel California?" Creed looked at him in disgust. "Why don'tcha skip to Pink Floyd an' be done with it?"
"Van Morrisson."
"'Tom Petty."
"U2."
"Hard to find what yer looking for, is it?" Creed grinned, insufferably.
"At least I'm still looking."
"I'm lookin' AT it."
"Look again," Logan growled.
"Looking," said Creed.
"Look somewhere else."
"How long, ba-" Sabretooth began.
"Go back up the mountain, Jack," Logan cut him off.
"Hot damn. You DO remember," Sabretooth was delighted.
"Witherspoon? What's the big deal?"
By this point, Kyle was lost about six miles back. He was pretty sure the 'hard to find what you're looking for, is it?' line was a reference to the U2 song 'still haven't found what I'm looking for', but after that it was like listening to a Chinese ping-pong tournament.
-Not that he was going to cut in, of course... unless-
"David Bowie?" Kyle asked.
"Fair enough," agreed Logan.
"Quiet Ri-"
"This is it," Creed interrupted Kyle, pointing to the dark gray truck up ahead in the crowded parking lot.
"-Oh," Kyle sounded disappointed.
"Hey kid, how long is 'Captain Crash' gonna be in town?" Logan asked.
"Until next Tuesday," Kyle said brightening, "-we got gigs on Saturday and Sunday night, but then ya need a day to recover, so-" he thought for a moment, "-do you, ah, wanna come to one of the shows?"
"Sure," agreed Sabretooth, sounding taken with the idea.
"Wouldn't miss it," said Logan.
Kyle pulled a crumpled flyer out of his back pocket, and handed it over.
"So..." Kyle shoved his hands back in his pockets, because he couldn't get them to stay still.
"Yeah, guess I'll see ya then," Logan clapped Kyle on the shoulder.
"This should be interestin'," said Sabretooth, looking at Wolverine as he said it. Then he paused, and reached into one of his coat pockets.
"You got a phone, boy?" he asked.
"Not really," admitted Kyle. -The number Logan had used to contact him was actually the number of a friend of his.
"Oh," Creed's hand came back out of the pocket empty. "Glad I met ya, then."
"Yeah..." Kyle's eyes flickered dangerously for a second, then went back to his usual halfway-innocent look.
"Heh," The moment wasn't lost on Creed.
"Try not to kill him between now and Saturday?" Kyle asked.
"I'll try," agreed Logan.
/They're GANGING UP on me/ Sabretooth thought, happily. /This could be more interesting than I thought./
"Let me out."
It was a mile or so away from the stadium, in one of the rougher sections of town.
"I broke your bike, remember?" Creed didn't stop the truck. "Where you gonna go?"
Logan popped claws, and held the tips lightly against Creed's collarbone.
"You know I'm not bluffing. Let me out."
"Why?" Creed asked, ignoring the claws.
"Cause I asked nicely, and you don't wanna wreck this truck."
Creed stopped at the next intersection, and stayed there after the light changed.
"Run, rabbit," Sabretooth looked at Logan pointedly. Logan tapped his claws against the side of Creed's face, then retracted them. The bone claws were warm to the touch, antler-like surfaces worn smooth from countless extensions. That touch tended to make Creed say and do really stupid things. The gesture was either unconscious on Logan's part, or a perfect parting shot, Creed couldn't tell which. "I'll find you," he growled, claws digging unseen into the back of the steering wheel.
"Yeah. It's called Saturday," Logan got out of the cab, and unloaded his bike from the bed of the truck, while the cars stuck behind them honked at him angrily. Creed watched the small, dark shape start pushing the motorbike down the sidewalk, then drove away.
/It's time to do some serious drinking/ decided Wolverine. /I walk through this old town, new faces that don't know me, street and concrete and pigeon shit on the eves. Neon. I think I'm walkin' at random, but then I see a block of defunct offices from the dot-com crash era, dark windows and torn white plastic over a vertical sign going up the side of the building. The red from a traffic light down on the corner catches the plastic for a moment, and I see another sign, this one in pink neon. 'Prophesy'. Weird name for a fleabag hotel, yet I think I've been here before. I can't smell anything...
Jimmying the lock is as easy as twisting hard. I close the door behind me softly, and my boots clump on the hard-carpeted stairs. I take the bike upstairs with me. The room is on the second floor, on the front side of the building. There's a sterile, yuppie feel about the place, but it is exactly that lack of personality to the room that makes it easy to remember what it was, like the glowing Heads-Up-Display on the windscreens of fighter-jets, the true shapes of the room are projected across my eyes.
At least it smells better now...
I feel a crushing sense of separation and time. Of inevitability. I've got to get out of here. Out of this room, out of this ghost building, far up North where nobody knows me, and disappear. I've got to-
Am I dreaming now?
I can smell crushed out cigarettes, and old couch, and whiskey. I can smell the mildew from under the sink, and the rain-soaked air from the just-open window. I didn't belong here then, and I sure as hell don't now. The memory, the way the walls feel so WRONG around me, and the phantom smells of the room tie into a knot in the pit of my stomach, and sit there like poison.
But I can't be poisoned, can I?
What the hell happened in this room? Who was I then? And why was I afraid?
Creed's never been here. I'm sure of that. Not as long as I lived here, at least.
Sabretooth wasn't supposed to BE on the Terry Adams mission.
Prophesy.
What prophesies have been written about me, I wonder.
Prophesies? Dream on, freak.
I was a mutant then and I'm a mutant now. I've read where we fit into the prophesies, and I'd choke first. I'm a mutant, but-
Flicking out both sets of claws at once, I look around the room, eyes darting around the impersonal, empty walls like a cornered rat. Walking to the center of the room, I bite my left wrist deeply, and watch the blood soak into the dusty white carpet.
Reflections of snow. My wrist heals quickly, and I feel another memory, one that knows why I just did that, threatening to black out everything else like a wave. I'm ANGRY at the blood. It shouldn't have hit the snow. He- I-/
"I can't kill 'im! You CAN'T make me DO this!" Logan screamed into the darkness.
/That's it, I am out of here. I walk the bike downstairs, manage not to stumble on the doorjamb to the outside, and breathe the cool, free, polluted, air of T.O. Overhead, I can see the stars.
I need a place to stay, but I don't trust the dreams I'd have in that place.
I'm not even sure it's the same building I thought it was, but...
Should have just gone with the drink./
Sabretooth hadn't seen Wolverine in two days, not since Wednesday night at the intersection. He told himself that tomorrow night wasn't that far away, but he couldn't quite buy it. Logan was a drug, and a dangerous one.
And one thing Sabretooth knew, was drugs. Nothing compared to 'the glow' of course, but he'd taken just about everything, at some point. Most of the drugs had been flushed out of his system almost before they started to work, but he had a lingering fondness for heroin, and a healthy respect for absinthe. He never knew WHERE he would wake up after drinking THAT stuff.
Being with Logan was the same way. Just enough to make Creed want more, but gone almost as soon as he started to be fun.
And addictive. DEFINITELY addictive.
It could have been ANYONE. Why did it have to be a sawed-off punk with severe mental problems, and eyes like sharp chips of brown beer-glass?
Disgusted with his circular train of thought, Creed listened in on a conversation taking place at the next table. Two thieves were planning a break-in. The target was...
Logan knew where the break-in would happen. He'd overheard the two young thieves talking about it at the bus stop. Sometimes things crossed his path, and they had to be dealt with. He wasn't going to get involved until he heard the part about bringing a 9-mil to take care of the night watchman, but that settled it.
Saturday morning, one AM, a jewelry store somewhere on the East side of town, and they had a partner who would meet them there, a new guy.
Great. The more the merrier. Maybe he could get this thing dealt with and get some sleep before Kyle's gig tonight, but Logan doubted it. He'd almost missed the break-in time as it was, and he was waiting on a fire escape crowded with potted plants, situated one story above the store. Something was off, he could feel it. The thieves showed up right on time, broke in, and Logan dropped to the sidewalk after them without a sound, following them in. ...Where the hell was the night watchman?
It was sheer luck that he was inside before the police lit the place up with spotlights.
"Sonofabitch!" one of the thieves yelled.
"The cops! Is the back open?"
It wasn't.
Logan played through options in his head. He could move in and collar these two, and then hand them over to the police. Or he could vanish into the air conditioning duct, and wait until the police had left. Yeah, the thieves had a gun, but they couldn't see shit outside with the spotlights on them, and the police had the situation covered.
Cigar smoke, and-
Great. The thieves weren't the only ones who'd been set up, and Sabretooth wanted him to know it. Logan took to the stairs, coming up three flights to the top of the roof.
"Hey, runt." Creed waved to him. A wind was up that night, and it snatched at Sabretooth's long trench coat and hair. That was why he hadn't smelled the police, then. Sabretooth had told them where to wait for the thieves, without mentioning that it was dead-center down wind.
"You done playing around?" Logan growled.
"I think I've made my point," Creed nodded.
"We should get out of here, then."
"I don't know. This place has got atmosphere," Creed grinned, motioning to the sea of flashing lights below. A stray bullet winged past his arm, missing him as he pulled it back. "So righteous. So ready ta kill us."
"Real nice, Creed. I'm still leaving."
"You do it, and I'll take you down when you leap."
"You'd be arrested too," Logan pointed out.
"So nice to know you care."
"You forgetting something, 'dad'?"
"Oh, you mean the thing you forgot when you came here in the first place, rather than calling the cops like everybody who DON'T have a complex?"
"Why are you so afraid to face Wildchild without me?" Logan spat back.
"You've got a way with the kid," Creed purred.
"Bullshit. The kid's impressed, you're just too blind to see it."
"You think so?"
The door to the shop down below crashed open, and the sounds of cops storming the place rose higher quickly.
"Time to go," ordered Logan. Creed remembered that voice. He'd missed it.
"Right."
They vanished like ghosts over the rooftops, a few bullets buzzing past them ineffectually, and then the cool, dark emptiness of running through the night.
Half an hour later, they were standing on top of a huge metal shipping container, one of dozens stacked up in a dockside loading yard. Out over the water, the lights of ships could be seen passing through the low-lying fog.
Logan pulled the hood of his costume down around his neck. Creed fished out his cigar from earlier, and re-lit it. Logan lit up also, and neither of them said anything for a while.
Creed finished his cigar first, and walked over to Logan. He tried to cup the side of Logan's face in his hand, but Logan pulled back from him, irritated.
"What do you want from me, bub? Really, I mean."
"I wanna give you back what you lost, and I want you back in return."
"No deal, Creed."
"I've learned a lot about you, you know? I know why you didn't stay with Team X. I know why you wanted ta belong in the X-Men so badly, knowin' all the time that you couldn't. I know what you're missin'. You know that feeling, when you wake up and your head tells you you're safe, but ya can't remember how to breathe? I know how to fix that," Creed promised.
"The hell you do. You're just tryin' to 'win'."
"What did you DO, Logan?"
"Whaddya mean?"
"Pain gets you a wee bit mixed up, but it's guilt that really hits your re-set button," Creed explained, "-so, what did you do?"
"Don't you know?" asked Wolverine. "I thought you know everything about me."
"I know what you did, but I don't know why you did it," Creed replied, carefully.
"So what you're sayin' is, I -did- sleep with you," Logan concluded.
Creed laughed.
"Wanna try it again and find out?"
"No," Logan answered.
/Bullshit./
"You sure? You could chalk it up to experimentation."
"I've chalked a lot of things up to experimentation, but somehow, I don't think you could be one of them."
"That's true," Sabretooth agreed, "-glad you remember."
"That's not what I meant," Logan growled.
"So pick different words next time," Creed purred.
"Shut up."
"Deal," Creed leaned over and bit Logan's ear.
"Grah! Get off me!" Wolverine snarled, twisting away hard enough to tear the skin of his ear between Creed's teeth. They faced off. Logan's ear held a drop of red on the bottom lobe, trickled down from the bite before it could heal. Sabretooth licked his lips, watching the slow-burning rage build in Logan's eyes, and catching the heady scent of arousal that would no doubt be denied later.
"You are so overdue for this..." Creed hissed.
"Prove it," sneered Logan.
"We've been down THIS road before. We're just gonna dance until you can think somethin' vicious enough to yell over your shoulder that it don't look like running away."
"You're not hearing me Creed," Logan interrupted, "-I told ya t'prove it. If you can."
"Oh... Prove it..." Creed echoed, realizing what Logan's game was.
It was about Logan's almighty self control. Hell, it wasn't even about CREED anymore. Logan wanted to prove that there was nothing here for him, no feeling that wasn't just autonomic.
The game was both a slap in the face, and an opportunity. This wasn't the time for an all-out assault. Creed had tried that before. No, this would be won with a purr, not a scream...
And Logan was counting on him to be dumb enough not to realize it.
First mistake.
Creed approached his quarry carefully. He walked around Logan full circle, touching whenever it suited him, but lightly. Shoulder, hip, the small of Logan's back, on the arm just above the blue glove. His face, the tip of one nail tracing a line from the corner of Logan's eye down to the side of his chin, like the track of a tear. Logan was glaring at him. Braced. Waiting for the wave to break.
Hah.
Creed leaned in and licked the drop of blood off of Logan's ear. Another lick, behind the ear this time, and Creed let one of his fangs scrape against the side of Logan's neck, just for a moment.
Creed's hands settled around Logan's waist, thumbs stroking the base of Logan's ribcage through hard muscle plate, in a gesture like a cat kneading it's paws. That got a response, but Logan regained his composure too quickly for it to count.
/Are we paying attention?/ Creed thought, grinning into Logan's hair. Creed pulled them closer, and Logan looked up at him, his expression unreadable. Creed stared down steadily for a moment, then licked the tip of Logan's nose deliberately. That got a momentary look of surprise, and a faint smirk, which Creed lost no time in catching in a kiss. Logan didn't kiss him back. That wasn't a problem, exactly, but it was frustrating. Logan liked to kiss, Creed knew, and he was -good- at it.
Damn.
But he didn't have to get Logan to totally lose it here, to win. He just had to get him thinking about there being a next time. Tightening his hold, Creed brought Logan fully against his chest, and started rubbing his back, the heels of his hands digging into the tension knot just below the middle of Logan's shoulder blades with a slow, relentless pressure that actually worked.
Time had changed Logan over the past twenty years, but precious little, and none of the old knots had moved. He was tense as hell though, and it took Creed the better part of two hours to unlock everything. Logan could feel Creed breathing against his hair, slow, and steady, and warm. He was gonna have Sabretooth's scent all over him.
/I'm still winning, though.../ Logan thought.
Logan woke to the feeling of something warm and wet on the back of his right hand. Opening his eyes, he saw bands of orange and purple in the pre-dawn Eastern sky, and knew that he'd... well... blown it. He had fallen asleep in Creed's lap. Again. For the second time this month. Except for his glove, his clothes were still in place though, and it didn't smell like... What -was- that on his hand...?
Looking up and back a bit, Logan saw that his nemesis had been licking the back of his hand. If he'd popped claws upon waking, as he often did, they would have gone straight through Creed's face into his brain.
Not that they wouldn't both survive the experience, but still...
Logan extended his claws just far enough to shape claw-points into the skin from the inside, emphasizing that thought. Creed looked down at him sidelong, and swirled his tongue around one of the skin-covered claw points before giving Logan his hand back.
"Have a nice nap?" Creed murmured.
Logan glared, but the look didn't reach his mouth.
"...Yeah," he answered, finally.
"So what happens now?" asked Creed.
"Now we get breakfast," Logan decided.
Creed's cell phone rang.
"Talk," he answered, cheerfully. "Who?" Pause. "How the fuck did you get this number?" Pause. "You think I don't know that?" Pause. "Yeah, well why d'you-"
Pause. "No, I WON'T." Pause. "-Deal with it." Pause. "-Look, if you come within a mile o' me, you're gonna find out what your own intestines taste like!" Pause. "You too. Bye." Sabretooth flipped the phone closed, and pocketed it.
"Who was that?" -Logan, now back in civvies, hadn't managed to catch the other end of the conversation over the background noise from the crowded restaurant.
"My agent," Creed shrugged.
"Sorry I asked."
Creed chased a strawberry to the other side of his plate with a forefinger claw.
"Got a plan for gettin' t' Africa yet?"
"What about Kyle?" Logan pointed out.
"Take 'im with us," Creed said, as if it should have been obvious.
"Not wise."
"He ain't exactly untrained, you know," Creed reminded him.
"Yeah, but military combat's different."
"Oh c'mon, Logan. How many soldiers have you taught?"
"He's not you, ya know," Logan stated, "-he might not want to BE like you."
Logan didn't mince words. Creed loved that.
"So like I said, YOU teach him," Creed grinned.
"Shadowcat, Jubilee, Amiko..." Logan sighed.
"Kyle's different."
"How so?"
"He's mine."
"All parents think that, Creed. Makes it that much harder to write the letters home when the kid ends up takin' a dirtnap," Logan told him, dryly.
"Healing factor? Hello?"
"Death ain't the worst thing that can happen to Kyle, and you know it," Logan snapped.
"Hmm," Creed smiled.
"What?"
"Nothin'."
Logan looked over at him dubiously, and stole the strawberry.
Creed let him.
Logan noticed this, and smirked around the strawberry. Creed kept hoping a drop of strawberry juice would escape, and made a bet with himself that he would get in on the action if it did, but it didn't. Logan watched him thoughtfully, chewing.
"I'll be right back." he stood, pushing his chair back, started to turn then paused. Palms flat on the table, Logan leaned across and closed the distance between them until Creed could feel the light scratch of brown whiskers against the side of his face. Logan sniffed him momentarily, then drew back with a quiet smile on his face, and walked off.
/God DAMN/ thought Creed, willing the blood pounding in his ears to slow down, /how does he DO that?/
"Hello?" Jean tucked the phone against her ear with a shoulder. In the light of a magnificent bay window over her shoulder, Professor Xavier continued his history lesson to the twelve students seated at the crescent-shaped table in front of him.
"Hey, Jeannie," It was Logan. Professor X's eyes flicked up for a moment when he felt the wave of happiness from Jean, but he kept going with the lecture.
"Logan. It's good to hear your voice."
"Yeah, well..." Logan shrugged, forgetting she couldn't see him over the phone. "What's goin' on?"
"Not much, thankfully. You took most of the 'fun' with you. Speaking of which..."
"I'm fine," Logan answered, a little too quickly for Jean's taste.
"Oh, and Nick Fury called the school a couple of days ago looking for you."
"Nick Fury? What did he want? Did he say?"
"No, but he sounded..." Jean trailed off. "Are you still with Victor Creed?"
"-With-?" Logan echoed, dubiously. "Who said-"
"I mean are you still traveling with him," Jean interrupted.
"Yeah, I am. He's workin' through somethin' right now, something a little more complex than he's used to."
"You mean Kyle?"
"Jean..." Logan growled.
"Ah..." Jean didn't like the sudden change in Logan's voice. He sounded really, really pissed. Almost scared.
"How many people know about this?" Logan asked, flatly.
Jean honestly didn't know. Her silence was an answer by itself, as she tried to think of what to say.
"Cat's out of the bag, ain't it," Logan sighed.
"Yes."
Logan swore.
"You know what this means, don't you? Kyle's just become a target for BOTH sides," he snarled, "-did anybody THINK about that?"
"Logan, I-"
"I know," Logan interrupted her, "-I know you weren't the one who leaked this. You're too smart for that. Fact remains though, the hand-basket's boardin'."
"Have you found him? Kyle, I mean?" Jean asked.
"Yes."
"Then he's safer with you than he would be anywhere else," Jean said, firmly.
"Thanks for the vote o' confidence," Logan deadpanned.
"Want backup anyway?" Jean asked.
"Jeannie, if there's somethin' that can get past Sabretooth and me, it's already over."
Jean wasn't going to argue that one- ...though she could have.
"Logan..."
"Yeah?"
"Are you really okay?"
Logan didn't want to lie to her, but he didn't know what else to say, either. This was JEAN.
"I-" he couldn't say it. "Jean, Creed's been tryin' to get my memory back for twenty years. What does that tell ya?"
"Well... That sounds like obsession to me," she said, carefully.
"Yeah, like a prisoner lookin' to get paroled."
"You may owe him a fair hearing," Jean allowed, "-but you don't owe him who you are now."
There was a pause.
"...I know. ...One other thing- -has anybody from the mansion been trying to contact me through Creed's cell phone?"
"Not that I know of," Jean answered, "-his contact information's listed in the restricted personnel files though, so they could have."
"Thanks," Logan told her. He meant it, but Jean caught the feeling that he wanted the conversation to be over now.
"Any time. Take care of yourself, Logan."
"You too, Red."
The phone clicked, then went silent. Jean hung the receiver back up in it's cradle, and rested her chin in her hand, thinking. Logan had just told her a lot, but he had left out as much as he said.
Jean decided not to mention the conversation to anyone. There was too much information running around loose as it was, and the seemingly academic topic of an enemy's unknown son had snowballed with frightening speed.
...Why had Hank thought to ask that question in the first place?
Sabretooth took one look at Logan's grim expression when he returned to the table, and thought for a skin-crawling moment that Logan had blanked out, and he'd have to start explaining things all over again. Then Logan dropped into the chair opposite him, crossed his arms, and eyed the 'no smoking' sign mounted on the wall beside the register counter with irritation. Creed tapped one of Logan's boots with his own under the table, questioningly.
"McCoy's got a lousy sense of discretion," Logan sighed.
"Wha'd he say?" Creed asked.
"Seems everybody an' their kid brother found out who Kyle is," Wolverine explained, disgustedly. "S'my fault. I should never have asked him to look at DNA, especially ours."
"W-What?" Creed choked.
"I asked Hank ta find out if we were any kin. That's what got him on the mix-and-match kick. Now Kyle's exposed as bein' yours, and every budding super- super-villain team and 'department X' wannabe is gonna come after him."
"Nice going," Creed growled, "-that was real fuckin' bright."
"What do you want me to do about it?" Wolverine challenged.
"Teach 'im how to fight the war he's already in," Creed told him firmly, "-we take Kyle out of here, and we take him -tonight-."
"And what if he doesn't want to go?" Logan asked.
"Burn that bridge when we come to it."
Wolverine scowled.
"You know I'm right," Creed added.
"This is why you never came for him before, ain't it."
"Partly, yeah."
"Why'd you bring me into this, Creed?" Wolverine asked. "Enough with the phony moral support crap. I know ya better than that."
"Do you?"
"Cards on the table," Logan demanded. "-Or you do this alone."
"What about Kyle?" Creed snarled.
"He'll get over it."
Creed looked at Logan across the table for a long, tense moment.
/Fuck it/ he thought, /It's not like I've ever been this close before./
"Let's take a drive," Creed agreed, carefully.
Miles outside town, long open fields and groups of sturdy trees broke up the suburbs, and Creed turned off the main road onto a smaller one. He changed direction again, and the road lost it's center divider. Finally, the gray pickup stopped next to a lake. Logan knew this place. There were beds of cattails along the shore, twisted with animal tracks and hunter's trails, hidden and exposed at the same time, like a Vietnamese rice paddy. This lake was better in the winter, when it froze over and you could walk out to the center of it, but it would do.
Logan parked his bike next to the truck, and kicked down the stand.
He found Creed under a spreading tree near the lakeshore, carving his name into the top of a wooden picnic table.
"You owe me some answers," Logan shoved his hands in the pockets of his black biker jacket, and leaned against the picnic table. Creed looked up.
"Okay. I'll turn over my cards one by one, and if you get a headache, say so."
"Huh?"
"...Unless you wanna wake up back at the X-mansion wondering what you've been doin' for the past seven months," Creed shrugged.
"I don't re-set THAT far."
"Yeah you DO."
"-All right, talk."
"All of us have been fucked with by the weapon X scientists at some point. You, me, AND Kyle."
"So?"
"You know I stole some files when I shut the Shiva program down, right?"
"Yeah," Logan lied.
"Turns out Kyle owes you his life, an' his freedom. You were the one who broke 'im out of the labs."
"How'd they get their hands on him in the first place?" Wolverine asked.
"Logan, shut up," Creed interrupted.
Silence.
/That's a first/ Creed thought, /-now play this carefully.../
"You broke him out. I know that much, but what I -don't- get is why you didn' keep him with you. Somewhere between the Weapon X lab and where you ran into the new Mr. and Mrs. Department H, you either lost him, or DITCHED him."
"I didn't kill 'im," Logan cut in.
"I know that. We saw him Wednesday, remember?" Creed looked at Wolverine thoughtfully. "Why did ya wanna kill him?"
"I didn't!"
"Look, I don't -do- rational, and you ain't helping," Creed said, irritated, "-just answer my fucking question."
"I don't. Have. The answer," Logan told him, flatly.
"Dig, Wolverine," Creed insisted, sarcastically.
"Why don't YOU dig up the real name of who called you earlier," Logan snapped.
"Hank McCoy," Creed answered, calling Logan's bet.
"An' what did he have to say?" Wolverine recovered quickly.
"I'm getting ta that!" Creed slapped the tabletop next to Logan, claw-points embedding in the wood. He jerked his hand free, splintering the boards. Logan didn't even twitch. "What yer Muppet of a school nurse had to tell me was nothin' I didn't already know. -You'd know too, if you'd open your eyes," Creed hinted.
"Quit beatin' around the bush," Logan said, irritated.
"The Weapon X project MADE Kyle. Baked up their very own super-soldier, which was high-tech shit, at the time. -Guess where they got the recipe?"
Wolverine froze.
"You?"
"No. US."
Logan swallowed hard, and shut his eyes tight. /This can't- Wasn't what they did to ME enough? ...Kyle... They took EVERYTHING. Creed was-/
"Logan? You okay?"
"How COULD they?" Logan growled, low and barely intelligible.
"You know."
Logan -did- know. The Hippocratic oath, the promise every doctor swears to 'first do no harm' didn't often apply to Mutants. Technology was money. When conventional weapons designers came up with two successful guns, the innovations of both designs were often combined into one package before the military bought it.
Kyle WAS that prototype.
Imagining what the project would have done with whatever luckless Jane Doe they'd used for Kyle's mother after they were finished with her, was all too easy. There would have to have been a woman, Logan knew. They didn't have the 'tanks' quite right back then...
"You don't look so good," Creed observed.
"I'm all right."
Creed put a large, clawed hand on Logan's back and kept it there, rubbing small circles into the black leather with his fingers. At length Logan looked up. Creed was looking back at him.
"So," Logan cleared his throat.
"Yeah," said Creed.
"Dr. Cornelius is dead. I know that much."
"He wasn't working alone," Creed put in.
"Do you know who else was in on it?"
"No."
"Then we still have an enemy," Logan decided.
"Yes."
"And... a son," Logan added, carefully.
"Ah-huh." Creed grinned.
"This is goin' to be complicated."
"With you, it always is," Creed snorted, "-what's say we start back in to the city now?"
"You're right. It'll be sundown soon," Wolverine agreed, "-one thing though-"
"Just one?" Creed piped up, skeptically.
"If you've been tryin' to get me in the sack so's I'll help you with Kyle, you can stop now."
"Heh heh..."
Creed waited until Logan had started back up the bank towards the vehicles, then cut two more words into the top of the picnic table, and followed the bike back into town.
"Can I hit him? Please?" The black-haired woman begged. Kyle shook his head. Marion huffed. She was in full stage makeup, and a short, shiny red dress with a ripped bottom edge. The white guitar slung over her shoulder gleamed like polished whalebone in the lights shining in from onstage. The band's name-sake Crash, who refused to go by anything else, looked doubtfully at Kyle, arms folded. This sweet, shaggy addition to their posse had become very dear to both of them. Crash had known Kyle was a mutant ever since the band had played in Cincinnati and a bar fight broke out, but knowing Kyle wouldn't be killed by anything short of a tactical nuke was actually a lot off his mind. Now if he could just get Marion to take Kyle with her when she went drinking...
"This is your dad? I mean, you're sure about this?"
"Crash, if he's not my dad, he's gotta be my uncle," Kyle had his hands in his back pockets again, and he looked understandably nervous.
"And, uh, the other stuff?" Crash asked, tactfully.
"Yeah, he's where I get the healing and stuff from," Kyle nodded.
"I don't give a fuck, baby," Marion put a militant-sisterly hand on Kyle's shoulder, "-if he tries anything, I'll torch this place."
"Quee-en..." Crash groaned.
"Hey, uh, we're ready out there," the bass player called over.
Crash nodded curtly, and turned back to Kyle.
"Good luck, man. We'll see you after the show."
Kyle watched them go, and wondered if he should wait here, or down on the dance floor, or over by the tables. Or at the bar, for that matter. He swallowed. Then he eyed the steel tube framework over the stage, hidden by the top section of curtain. That would work. Kyle shinnied up the framework jungle-gym style, and hung from one of the pipes by his knees, right over where Marion was launching into her opening number. Past the dangling tips of his hair, Kyle could see down her dress pretty well from here. Too bad she was in love with Crash.
Creed gave the outside of the club an appraising glance. Rock music could be heard from down the street where they'd parked the bike and Creed's truck. It wasn't bad, but it had a caffeine edge that seemed to be annoying Wolverine. If this club was non-smoking, it soon wouldn't be.
"I've seen worse," Logan decided, pushing the door open. Inside, a wave of party warmth closed over them. Creed made his way to the crowded bar at the left side of the floor, and shouted at the bartender for a couple of beers. He savored the reactions of the other people at the bar with him. Logan wasn't one of them. He'd gone towards the stage, probably looking for Kyle. People had several reactions to Creed, and while fear was common, he was also compelling, and he knew it. Every time he walked into a crowded room like this and opened his mouth, people noticed. Six-feet-seven of blonde matter-of-fact self assurance tended to do that. The fangs and claws clinched it. Like it or not, he was in their faces- ...and many of them liked it.
He lacked Logan's talent of sitting still and getting kitten-like things to come over and sit trustingly in his lap, and he couldn't pass unnoticed ANYWHERE, but Creed couldn't think of anyone he would rather be than himself. It was, well, fun.
The bartender came back with the beers, and Creed opened one, holding the neck of the other hooked loosely between two fingers. So many young people here. He could smell the hair gel, drugs, and Japanese plastic that the current generation seemed to have trademarked as it's own even over the beer and hot Human. Creed caught a tall, curvy brunette with wavy hair and deep green eyes smiling at him from halfway down the bar. Logan had stopped prowling around the perimeter of the club, and claimed a small table up near the stage, one table removed from the madness on the dance floor. Creed looked from one to the other for a moment, then grinned. He went over and put the moves on the girl, watching Logan out of the corner of his eye. The runt had noticed, and he was giving Sabretooth the look he usually reserved for open mass graves. Creed wrote Nick Fury's home number on a napkin, and gave it to the girl as his. -A fine piece of ass was a terrible thing to waste. /Waste- ...Get it? Heh heh.../
Logan had tried not to watch. Like the screaming brakes of a race car in a crash-reel, the harsh reality of just who he'd walked in with held his attention anyway. He'd found Kyle, probably. The faint thread of scent led him to the stage, and no further. And then he'd looked for Creed...
/What was I thinkin'?/ Wolverine studied his palm, disgustedly. Even if he did want Creed, it wasn't like they were gonna be exclusive. Mystique had proved that years ago, and she could turn into anything. She also didn't have a memory like Swiss cheese. The thought stung, but no more than the one that followed it. Mystique had a son by Sabretooth, and while Graydon hadn't been born with mutant powers, he'd at least been intentional. And Mystique had abandoned him anyway, a failed experiment who had since become a determined enemy.
/I will never understand Mystique/ Logan decided, /-think I'd shoot myself in the head if I ever did. ...Just on principle./
And that left the current problem. He couldn't trust Creed. Ever. Had Beast really corroborated what Creed had told him about Kyle's genetics down by the lake, or had that been a game too?
No, it didn't really matter. Maybe he shared blood with Kyle and maybe he didn't, but the fact was, Logan had a connection he wouldn't just let go now. He'd had a connection before, as Wildchild's teacher and occasional warden, but seeing Wildchild trying to make his own way in the world had cemented it. Kyle was more than just a number on a team roster, even if that meant he had to make a few decisions on his own. Some Mutants simply weren't strong enough to leave the teams. Kyle had always been strong enough to leave, but now he was strong enough to leave without becoming a villain.
Logan had no more questions.
He'd waited longer to make that call with Kyle than with anyone else in recent memory. Contrary to what he'd told Creed, he HAD wanted to kill Kyle at one point. Fortunately he hadn't acted on it, he'd just yelled something about Kyle needing to be put down, and stalked out of the Alpha Flight practice room.
/'Just.' Yeah, keep tellin' yourself that, bub.../
Creed claimed the seat across from Logan's and slid a beer bottle across the table, unopened. Logan gave him a cold look, and opened the bottle. He raised it, then caught the curly-haired girl's scent from the condensation on the surface, and stopped, putting it back down.
"What?" Creed asked, innocently.
Logan tipped the bottle over in Creed's direction, landing half the beer in the other man's lap.
"HEY!" Creed grabbed the bottle quickly, and set it down out of Logan's reach. "That's cold, you little shit..."
"You had it comin'," Logan shrugged, reclaiming the bottle with a quick lean-and-snatch.
The band ended the first set, riled up the crowd, and the curtain fell. Then there was a distinct thud, like a sandbag falling. Or a person. Talking and laughter from backstage, and Kyle's voice was among them. Logan and Creed exchanged an uneasy glance, and a silent truce was struck. A minute later Kyle walked out from backstage, unaware of the smudge of glittery makeup on his right cheek. Sabretooth waved to him from a table down in front. Logan was in a really bad mood, Kyle noted. Kyle snagged a chair from another table on his way over, trying to ignore the fact that half the band was probably watching him around the edge of the stage curtain.
"Hey dad. Logan."
Creed reached over and touched the makeup smudge, then sniffed his fingers.
"Nice," he decided, "-girlfriend?"
Kyle wiped his cheek on the sleeve of his black t-shirt, and looked at it to see what Creed was talking about.
"I wish. She dates the lead singer," Kyle told him.
"You can change that, ya know," Creed suggested.
"Nah, Crash's my friend," Kyle explained quickly. "I wouldn't do that to him."
"Huh."
Kyle noticed the puddle of beer spilled across the tabletop between his dad and Logan, and wondered what he'd just walked into the middle of.
Silence.
"Umm..." Kyle picked up the girl's scent on Creed, and looked from one to the other. "I'll see you at the end of the next set, I guess."
"Siddown," Logan's hand landed on Kyle's shoulder. Kyle sat. "This didn't have anythin' to do with you. -Tell me how ya hooked up with a rock and roll band."
"I broke into the tour bus. You know, by accident..." Kyle began.
Kyle stayed with them throughout the whole show. The beer on the table got wiped up at some point, and empties started collecting there like pigeons on a park bench. Kyle had gone through several groups and circles, his interest in each tight-knit team flaring with a fierce devotion initially, and in each case, he was either valued solely as a killer, or made to feel guilty for the exact same reason. Kyle never said as much, but the phrase, "So then I moved on-" seemed to show up a little too often. Alpha Flight did the best of anyone, having had experience with both Wolverine and Sasquatch before Wildchild arrived on the scene. Kyle got a distant and somewhat sad look in his eyes when he spoke of Aurora. Her minx side had affected him deeply, but it was Jean-Marie he'd held out real hope of getting somewhere with. ...And yet here he was now.
Logan found himself watching for holes in Kyle's narrative as much as the story itself. So far, he hadn't found one. Kyle wouldn't black things out when they got bad, he'd just...
stop being Human for a while.
Not that anybody at this table was Human anyway, technically.
Sabretooth lit up, and watched the conversation between Logan and Kyle silently. This was what he'd set up, but it was still a pleasure to watch it unfold. It occurred to Creed, and not for the first time, that he could easily lose Kyle to Logan if he fucked this up. It was just a matter of experience, and if he fought Logan here, he would lose. Even with all the cards in hand, and Logan's memory in pieces, he would still lose. It was a strange thought.
At length, Kyle asked Logan about the X-Men.
"Scott runs the day-to-day stuff, and there's more students at the school now. That's about it," Logan paused, "-been thinkin' of moving on myself, lately."
Kyle glanced over at Creed for a moment, then back at Logan.
"Know where you're going?" he asked.
"Africa," Logan nodded, "-Nick Fury tells me there's a few situations down there that would benefit from a more expert touch."
Creed drummed his claws briefly on the tabletop, meaningfully. He hadn't known Logan had already contacted Fury about the details of this little excursion.
Kyle fumed. He didn't want them to go. He'd barely met his dad, and he'd learned as much about Logan in the past week as he had previously in Alpha Flight. It wasn't fair, but there was clearly no stopping them either.
"You wanna come with us?" Creed asked him, abruptly.
Kyle stopped.
He didn't really want to kill anyone. ...Or rather, he didn't WANT to want to kill anyone. He'd met Nick Fury briefly, but the guy seemed to be on the level. That was worth something, wasn't it?
Kyle was torn. If he could find a way to get in on this mission, he would be able to find out once and for all, how deadly he really was. He would be fighting alongside Wolverine and Sabretooth, the indispensable core of Team X, one of the top-secret legends that everyone seemed to have heard of anyway. Unless he really screwed up, Wildchild would return from Africa as something people would finally take seriously.
That was the whole problem though... 'some -thing-'. Kyle had fought long and hard to be a 'some-one-'. What if Africa destroyed that?
Kyle watched Logan's face for a long moment, and it dawned on him that they were wondering the same thing. This was his answer. If there was one man who could bring him through what lay ahead unbroken, it was Logan.
It wasn't Logan's style to take children with him into battle, though. Unless they had to learn a lot in a hurry...
"You sure you want me with you?" Kyle asked.
"Yeah," Logan nodded.
"Unless you're plannin' ta drag ass and hide behind us," Creed shrugged.
"I'll get my stuff," decided Kyle.
Africa be damned. The most dangerous battlefield would always lie between Creed and Logan anyway.
"Africa," Marion echoed.
"Do you even know WHERE in Africa?" Crash asked, scratching his head.
"No. It's probably one of those tellya-killya things anyway," Kyle replied, stuffing another t-shirt into his duffel bag.
"B-but wait a second! You don't even know this guy!" Marion protested.
"Creed is his dad," Crash pointed out, doubtfully.
"Yeah, and what kind of an -asshole- takes this long to admit that?" Marion snapped.
"I dunno. My uncle was in Vietnam, and it took him like, fifteen years before he could handle seeing his wife and kids again."
"Really?" Marion looked at Crash with concern. "You think Creed is like that?"
"Fuck if I know," Crash shrugged, helplessly, "-I'm just saying it's possible."
"Creed's not the one I'm trusting," Kyle stated, "-that's Logan."
"Logan..." Marion thought for a moment. "Your old teacher from when you were in high school?"
"Uh, kind of," Kyle added two dirt-bike magazines to his duffel, and left a third in the mesh magazine rack on the back of the tour bus's driver's seat, "-we were both on the same team."
"You're not talking about rugby, are you," Marion twigged, "-you were on, like, a superhero team."
"I'm sorry, Queen. I-I should have told you guys, but..." Kyle couldn't meet her eyes.
"Hey, it's cool, man," Crash told him, "-it's in the past, right?"
"It's in the past," Kyle nodded, wincing inwardly.
"Which team were you on?" Crash asked.
"Alpha Flight."
"Then I gotta know one thing."
"What?" Kyle tensed.
"Is that Hudson chick as hot as she looks on TV?"
"More," Kyle grinned, "-but she acts like a soccer mom."
"M.I.L.F.," Crash looked pleased, "-cool."
"So this Logan guy," Marion began, not-so-subtly changing the subject, "-what's his deal?"
Kyle looked at his sharp-nailed hand.
"It's kinda hard to explain. We didn't get along real well at first, but then he changed his mind or something, and started doing the Mr. Miyagi thing." /"You're still a bit wild, a bit reckless. The trick is to channel that fire burning in your gut-- USE the beast, not be used by it," -And I learned that trick. That and anything else he was willing to teach me, 'cause he wasn't just another 'norm blowing smoke up my ass about being good and obedient for once. HE knew./
"Look, I know you have to go give things a try with your deadbeat dad, but if it doesn't work out, we'll always have a spot for you on the bus. Remember that."
"Thanks Queen," Kyle hugged Marion, burying his face in her smooth shoulder, and dark straight hair. She smelled like post-gig sweat, baby powder, and apricot body spray.
"Same goes for me," Crash promised, doing one of those doesn't-count-'cause-I'm-pounding-you-on-the-back hugs. Crash smelled like Vaseline, suede, and Old Spice.
It wasn't until Kyle had left to go meet up with Creed and Logan that Marion noticed a set of four deep gouges in the plastic front surface of her guitar. It wouldn't affect the sound of the instrument, but the marks had been left by Kyle's claws when he hugged her, without either of them noticing it was happening. Marion ran a finger over the marks lightly, wondering just how many other things she'd missed.
"He'll be back," predicted Crash, calmly. He unscrewed the top of a bottle of glitter nail polish, and Marion held out her guitar to him while he painted sparkles into the scratches with it.
"What is this place?" Logan asked his guide, suspiciously. The empty walls of the bright, linoleum-tiled hallway were clean, but the building had been sealed for years- -Logan sniffed for a moment- -until about two days ago. Colonel Fury had told him to report to Ft. Drum in upstate New York, but being met at the front gate by a bearded retiree who introduced himself as Neil, seemed much more like Wolverine's own style than Fury's. Neil appeared to be harmless, but Logan knew military, retired or otherwise. Anyone Nick Fury would call on for a favor had to be a lot more capable than he looked. The Army was a constantly-evolving entity, often consuming parts of itself when they became obsolete, taking over space or equipment for each new purpose without much reflection on the past extending further than the paperwork required to change it.
This building had been cut off from that process so long that the current base commander probably had no idea what it was for.
"Spec-ops re-supply," Neil answered Logan's question, "-I keep a few things in stock here, so nobody has to order 'em until after the missions are finished. Less flags that way."
"Doesn't get much use," Logan observed.
"You'd be surprised," Neil stopped in front of a black metal door with the number three stenciled on it in yellow, and opened it with a keycard. The door opened with a soft sigh of pressure-release that a normal person wouldn't have been able to hear, and both men stepped inside. Neil turned on the light, a single bright bulb suspended from a cord on the ceiling.
Maverick.
Logan inhaled sharply. He HAD been here before. His, Maverick's, and Sabretooth's scents were all over the place. There was a fourth scent that he couldn't place, and there were three refrigerator-sized metal lockers, one against each open wall. A square wooden table stood in the middle of the room, surface scratched and dented by the passage of guns, ammo cans, and rucksacks.
And claws.
"Wait outside," Logan ordered Neil.
"Sure thing, Major."
Logan closed the door, and ran a hand roughly through his hair, looking around. North's locker seemed like a safe enough place to begin. It wasn't even locked. Like the man himself, North's, AKA Maverick's locker was organized, clean, and logical. Uniforms from a dozen countries and eras stared back at him, folded in a tall stack. Several shelves' worth of high-tech hardware were arranged on plain white towels to the right side, and various pairs of boots covered the floor on the left side. Two lumpy duffel bags warred with the boots for space, and on the shelf at the top of the locker, Maverick's helmet and several very wicked-looking guns stared back at him. There was also a pile of mail stuffed into one of the boots, mostly phone and electric bills from North's apartment off-base, dated 1961.
Talk about yer late-payment charges.
Some of North's usual equipment was missing, but Logan wasn't sure what.
This place was REAL, all right, but it was also as phony as a stuffed deer head.
Logan left North's locker open, and moved to the next one over.
His.
He opened it.
None of it was right. Sure, the things were HIS, but it looked like somebody had ransacked the locker at some point, and put things back in only a close approximation of where they should go, not the way Wolverine would have put them in there. The knives were there, at any rate. Six of them, flat, carbon-steel slivers of frogman-designed bad news packed into a rectangular, thigh-strapped sheath. He'd chosen carefully when he replaced his WW2-era Sykes-Fairbourne dagger. These weren't a rookie's knives. The blades had been designed for low weight as well as combat effectiveness, so in the hands of an amateur the wrong twist or bend of the handle could break the blade off in the enemy's chest. In Logan's hands, however...
/Guess I wasn't letting it slip that I had claws back then.../ Logan reflected.
Logan went through the rest of his gear, beginning a mental list of what he would take with him to Africa. No old bills in his boots. An old photograph of the team was folded up in a tan bandana near the back of one shelf. Creed, himself, and Maverick. They were in full combat gear, standing in front of a German police station. A police dog being held in check by a young soldier in the background was barking at them with deep misgivings. There were pictures missing, Logan knew. More than two of them. He pocketed the photograph anyway.
Creed's locker was last.
As chaotic as Sabretooth was when he fought, the gear on the shelves was in a reasonably coherent order. Something smelled like raspberries. Something also smelled like dried meat, and not the peppered-mesquite kind.
Wolverine sighed, and patted down the pockets of the uniforms. Locating a shriveled curl that used to be a Human ear, Logan looked around for a trash can. There wasn't one. He put it in the hip pocket of his jeans instead.
Okay, back to business.
Most of Sabretooth's gear was standard. Instead of the deadly and inconspicuous special forces knives that Logan favored, Creed had two Marine-issue K-bars, grips worn smooth and dark from use.
The raspberry smell was from a white baklava, part of Creed's cold-weather gear. Conditioner, probably. Creed was the only one who bothered with that stuff in hostile zones.
There were supposed to be pictures in Creed's locker too, Logan could smell a whiff of silver nitrate. Couldn't find any, though.
Fucking military.
Still, Fury could have just handed him new gear altogether, and hidden more than just a few pictures. What had Nick meant for him to find? Proof that Team X, in some form, had been real?
The ear, maybe?
Or was he saying that he'd expected one or more members of Team X to come back sooner or later anyway?
Wolverine stepped back, thinking. Then he closed his and Creed's lockers, and let Neil back in.
"Find anything you can use?" Neil asked, a gleam of humor not quite hidden behind his steel-framed glasses.
"Yeah, I think I did," Logan nodded, "-I'll be back with my team later. Think you can come up with this in the meantime?" He passed Neil a handwritten list. Neil looked it over.
"New guy?"
"Yeah," Logan smiled, "-hand-to-hand expert. Total cherry, though."
"Does he need any medical supplies? I understand you and Creed don't carry them, but-"
"Actually, yeah. Maverick always carried 'em before," Logan agreed. Kyle wouldn't need them, but they would run into a casualty sooner or later. Besides, the fewer people who knew what Kyle's abilities were, the better.
"Right," Neil scribbled a note onto the end of the list.
Later that day, Kyle and Sabretooth found Logan outside the post exchange. Kyle was saying something about dirt bikes. Half-sitting half-leaning against a concrete planter up ahead, Logan had finally shucked his jacket in deference to the June heat, which left him in a white a-line, blue jeans, and black motorcycle boots. His hat and jacket lay on the concrete edge beside him, unwatched but still guarded. No-one seemed to be giving the short, scruffy stranger a second glance, military wives and retirees walking past him as if he had no more significance than a new fern in the planter. But Logan shone. He had great shoulders, and a compact, powerful body that could do anything he asked of it. A quiet spark of intelligence lurked in Logan's eyes, like the edge of a knife winking in an otherwise dark room. His blunt, short-nailed hands could defuse bombs, wipe away tears, and kill with barely a touch. The dark, tufted hair smelled like home, and had all the textures of a wolf's winter coat.
Even a little confused, Logan was so blatantly more than the people around him, it was almost funny.
"...Are you?" Kyle was saying.
"What was that?" Creed looked back at him.
"You didn't hear anything I just said," Kyle realized.
Creed shrugged.
"Ah-huh."
"WHAT?"
"You've got a thing for Logan," Kyle guessed, carefully.
"I am NOT takin' dating advice from someone whose EXISTENCE I'm responsible for," Creed said, flatly. The young always fucked this logic up. Attraction wasn't cute, and it damn well didn't always work out the way you wanted it to. The last thing Creed needed was to have someone with the mentality of a high school kid trying to hook up his two pet adults.
"Uh- -never mind," Kyle sighed.
"What's the word, Logan?" Creed called over to his distraction.
"Wha'd ya do, lose the directions?" Logan asked, as Creed and Kyle walked up.
"Yes," Creed told him, grinning.
"Liar. I found us equipment. Some of it's a little old, but it all works."
"They still have our Team X stuff here," Creed said, after a moment's thought.
"Exactly. Speakin' o' which-" Logan tossed Creed something about the size of a pack of matches. Creed looked at it briefly, then closed his hand.
"Oh yeah, that."
"What is it?" asked Kyle, sniffing. Creed passed him the dried ear. "Oh! ...That's different."
"Anyway, I found your gear and mine," Logan continued, "Maverick's stuff's there too. If the contact Fury gave us comes through with the updated stuff and Kyle's gear, we should be outta here by tonight."
"Where to from there?" Creed asked.
"A chopper from here to some Air National Guard base, and then we're riding with a KC-135 refueler down to Pope, in North Carolina. That's the jump-off point."
"And you took that?" Creed looked dubious.
"There's a C-5 headin' out tomorrow night, if you don't mind flyin' coach with half the American Army," Logan shrugged.
"I'd rather buy the tickets myself."
"Leaving tonight, we got a Hercules," Logan assured him. "You remember those, right?"
"Let me get this straight... You finally make the call, bring me WITH you, and Nick won't even give you a plane to yerself?"
"Covert ingress," Logan explained.
"Riiiiigggght," Creed nodded skeptically, "-he'd better not have pulled this bull with our equipment."
"We open the orders when we get t-" Logan stopped. "Kyle, what are you chewing on?"
Kyle blinked, stopped chewing, then looked very, very guilty. His hands were empty.
Logan put a hand over his eyes in disbelief.
Creed threw his head back and laughed.
-