Chapter 7


Victor should have seen it coming, but masking the scent of the explosives had been a nice touch. He might have even admired the burning husk behind them if parts of him weren't literally on fire, and if Wilson hadn't been the one to pull it off.

He took mental stock of his injuries and knew this was going to be hell to heal from. He'd been able to shield Rogue completely, which was the one bright side to this shit storm; he wouldn't have been able to heal them both, not with the fucking collar active.

He didn't feel much pain- which was concerning, but probably best for the moment. Victor didn't relish the thought of later when his nerves regenerated. But, for now, they just needed to get the fuck out of BumFuckNowhere, Wisconsin.

"Victor!" Rogue squeaked, taking in the extent of his injuries. He must be a pretty sight to make her blanch like that.

"Don't worry about me, just find us a fucking car!" He growled.

The girl switched from concerned to determined and snapped into action. And that was something he could admire: her cute little ass scurrying away.

Disoriented diners were already filing out into the parking lot to take in the carnage at the far edge where he had parked. They had a precious little time before the police got involved; he already thought that he heard sirens in the distance. Victor didn't plan on hanging around to find out if they were on their way here.

He tried to push himself up and was assaulted by black swimming up in his vision. Fucking vertigo.

Victor made it to his feet, leaning heavily on the slightly less demolished vehicle beside theirs. The truck was burning strong, smelling oddly of charred sugar and gasoline. He'd liked that truck, and the next time he saw Wilson, the fucker was going down.

Victor grimaced, and set to work pulling what shrapnel he could out of his back. His vision swam again, and he found that he was dangerously on the edge of doing something frail like passing out.

Before he could, Rogue swung around in the tiniest goddamn car he'd ever seen. She pushed open the passenger door for him, and Victor all but fell into it.


"A fuckin' Mini Cooper? Seriously?"

"It had keys," she snapped. The man was going to be fine if he felt well enough to complain about their stolen ride. But he sure doesn't look it.

It would have been a tight squeeze on a good day, but he managed to slam the door shut and broke the seat off its track in order to accommodate his frame by the time Marie peeled out of the parking lot.

"Where?" She asked after a few minutes. They were headed north, and as far as she could tell, no one followed them.

Yet.

"Gotta bolt hole couple hours north. We'll ditch this, and I'll take over from there."

Marie cast Victor a doubtful glance. He looked like hell, beyond hell really- just a shade from passing out. She doubted he'd be conscious in those couple of hours.

"Don't look at me, and watch the fuckin' road."

He was in pain and lashing out, but that didn't mean she needed to put up with it. But then again, he'd shielded her, and after last night she was all kinds of confused about where she stood with the man. So, maybe a bit of pragmatism was in order.

"Got an address, sugar?"


"Okay, we're gonna try something," Marie said to no one.

Well, she supposed she was saying it to Creed, but he'd been unconscious since shortly after she got him in the car. Marie found the address he gave her easy enough, well, with some consultation from the Creed-in-her-head. Getting in the garage had been trickier with his security, but she'd managed that, too.

The real test was going to be getting him out of the damned car without making his injuries worse.

The majority of his coat and shirt had been incinerated in the blast. What was left had fused into the remains of his skin. In other areas, gaping swaths of muscle glistened in light they were never intended to see. And that didn't even begin to describe the embedded shrapnel.

She eyed the feral warily. The fact was he wasn't healing; at least, not fast enough to suit her. Both times he lent her his mutation, she healed up within moments.

And the latter of those times had been just the night before. Victor had no doubt overtaxed himself, and that collar wasn't doing him any favors.

Rogue took several minutes to center herself and find the place she needed in her head.

Victor, I need to move you, and I can't do it by myself. I need your strength.

Suddenly, as easy as breathing, she felt the rush of power skitter across her skin. She raced to the passenger side and hefted the feral before the miraculous burst of strength could desert her.

Calling up previously absorbed powers after initial contact had never been something she managed before, despite the Professor's insistence that she give it a try. Though, given that she had absorbed Victor only the night before, the effects could still just be lingering. She could figure that out later. Regardless, she didn't waste any time getting him into the dwelling proper, and into the first bedroom she could find.

Marie laid him out on his front gently and dressed his burns as best she could with a heavy-duty first aid kit pilfered from the adjoining bathroom. Then she moved on to his other, more difficult injuries. The stitching up part was worse than pulling the chunks of metal out, but she could already see improvement by the time she was halfway done tending to him.

At some point his pained, unconscious groans had shifted into a contented purring.

She glanced to his face, startled to find intelligent black eyes staring back at her.

"Hey. Wasn't expecting you to wake up for a while."

He grunted, and she took that as assent to finish up her task.

"I got most of it, but there's some spots where-"

"S'fine," Sabretooth yawned, stretching languidly. Nope. Not like Wolverine when he's out at all.

Tying off the last stitch and bereft of an excuse to keep touching him, the woman reluctantly drew her gloved hands away. She would have called the urge to touch him an odd compulsion, but they'd crossed some sort of weird, intangible barrier since their misadventure started. Marie would be outright lying if she said she wasn't worried about him. And she would be devastated if-

"Right, then. I'll just let you rest."

He grabbed her wrist as she tried to get up off the bed.

"Stay." It was an order, not a request.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Marie declined. She really should get away from him for a while to get some perspective and figure out, well, everything. Trouble was, she didn't want to.

"Want you here." He drew her captured hand to his face and nuzzled into it.

Okay, that was oddly… cute. Though, she doubted he would appreciate that assessment.

"I ought to find us something to eat," she said, instead. "You're gonna need it."

Logan always ate like a horse when he got injured. She couldn't imagine Victor would be much different, in that respect.

As if sensing her turn in thought, the feral nipped at her fingers. "We can fight later. Lay down." Sabretooth's tone was firm. Rogue was out of excuses, and it didn't seem to be the right time for a stubborn-off.

Agitating him would make the healing just take that much longer.

"Fine. Just for a little while. Then I really am going to find you something to eat."

She didn't know what or how much Victor remembered when his feral side was in control, but Sabretooth liked to snuggle. Marie found that out the night before. And within five seconds of her gingerly laying down on the far side of the bed, the big cat must have decided that it was snuggle time again.

For someone so constantly aware of her skin and what it could do, such prolonged contact, even through clothing, was disconcerting. But here and now she found it… nice.

Victor had not mentioned it that morning, and neither had she. She figured that if it was just his feral side that had formed some sort of attachment and acted on it, then Marie would take what she could and keep her damn trap shut.


Victor was fucked. Royally fucked.

He woke up healed, hard, and ready with a goddamned angel sleeping next to him, and he couldn't do jack shit about it because he'd picked five minutes ago to grow a fucking conscience.

Her scent was everywhere, and in his sleep, he'd gathered her to himself like a damned teddy bear. And this hadn't been the first time. Two days in a row, and it felt so fucking right that it scared the shit out of him. Victor extricated himself slowly, taking care not to wake Rogue. He watched her for a few moments longer before stalking off to shower in the master down the hall.

The man swiped a hand down his face in frustration. It was one thing when he was the one taking care of her, but the other way around was untenable. That was too much like a relationship with emotions and other frail bullshit. Depending on people only got you burned in the long run.

To make matters worse, the Cat fucking loved her, scent marking her every chance he got. And the combination was a headfuck. A dangerous one.

He didn't know what he'd have done if he hadn't caught sight of those damnable tags once again. Seemed even now, Jimmy could knock some sense into him.

Getting attached wasn't what he had signed up for. He hadn't even fucked the girl, and he was already making plans for after they found his dumb assed brother.

He may play a good soldier, but Victor hadn't lived nearly two hundred years as a fucking moron. There wouldn't and couldn't be an after. She'd go back to her little goody-goody X-squad, and he'd get back to being on his own and answering to no one. Relying on no one.

That tight feeling in his chest didn't matter because this was the way things were going to be.

If he took her at this point, he knew he'd be too damn selfish to give her up when the time came, even if she grew to hate him for it.

No. Distancing himself now would be better for both of them in the long run. Whether he liked it or not.


Marie woke to something jabbing her in the side. Funny, she didn't remember falling asleep, but then, it must have been the purring-

She shot up, already aware that the spot next to her was cold. So, Creed was up and about. Good, she tried to convince herself.

Judging by the sun, it was late afternoon, and the rumbling in her gut agreed.

She rubbed at her side absently, and a small pad of paper fell out of the coat she was still wearing.

Of course, it was Deadpool's doodle pad- only it landed bottom side up.

The backing had a string of letters and numbers scrawled across it.

A string of numbers and letters that didn't make a lick of sense as far as she was concerned. She picked it up to examine it further.

"Eleven, U-P-B-"

"That's Alberta," said the man from the door.

Apparently, Victor was in super-quiet stealth mode; she felt faintly proud of herself for not jumping. The man was freshly clean, blue eyed, and wearing clothes after his shower, for once. Marie sensed a hard edge from him that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"Loudmouthed fuck was useful after all," he continued.

"You can read this then?" She got up and thrust the pad into his hands.

He grunted in affirmation.

"But how do you know where that's at without checking?"

"Military grid reference system. It's standard," He replied. And then a moment later, "I'm from there."

Marie was sure her eyebrows shot up comically.

"You. You're Canadian?"

"Yeah, what of it?" He lifted his eyes from the paper to glare at her properly.

"Nothing, nothing," she shrugged.

"Good, then shut the fuck up about it," Victor growled waspishly.

"I thought Canadians were supposed to be polite," Marie quipped, trying not to crack a smile and failing horribly.

"Shut the fuck up, please," Victor amended.

Her grin dimmed as he returned the pad of paper. "Looks like we got coordinates, then."

This meant that they were a lot closer to finding Logan than they were yesterday. She should be elated. And she was, but it also meant that her tentative arrangement with Victor was drawing to a close.

Is that why he's so edgy? He must have had a similar realization somewhere along the way. She didn't relish the thought of them being enemies again once this was all over, but maybe they didn't have to be.

Creed shifted in front of her, drawing her back to the present. His expression hardened as he spoke.

"I'm going out. Keep this place locked tight. Don't go out, and don't open the door for nobody." He turned and strode out of the room.

Wait, what?

She'd saved his ass, stitched him back together, and now he decided to treat her like a fragile, untrustworthy child? Like hell she was going to stand for that.

"I'm going with you." Marie announced when she caught up to him.

He turned back to her, eyes narrowed.

Or maybe this is why he's edgy. He's in asshole mode.

"No. Gotta ditch the car too. You're staying here."

"Seriously? You're probably not totally healed yet, and it will be faster if we both go."

Quicker than she could track, he had her hemmed into the wall. Her gaze dropped to his lips and for a split second, she was sure that Victor was going to close the distance between them and kiss her.

Instead, he backed off and looked away.

"Seriously," he mocked, "I'll be back in an hour."

He might be back in an hour, but that didn't mean Rogue planned on being there when he returned.


A/N: So, this is really more like 'Chapter 7: Part One,' but with rewrites and editing, the whole chapter got rather long (As one chapter, it's about twice this length without some of the stuff that still needs to be added to the second half). I figured that you all would prefer having the first part while I tweaked and revised the rest of it, rather than have me hold the whole thing back another week or so.

Next Time: Marie laments that Victor missed his calling as a professional hairstylist.