Logan knew it was a mistake as soon as he was back inside his own body. He felt the link flex, then Teva pulled and it was like someone had attached a rope just under his ribs and handed the other end to the Hulk throwing a tantrum.
He came to a few moments later staring up at Deadpool's stupid mask. The merc was sitting on his ass, scratching his forehead with the barrel of his gun.
"So, uh, what just happened?" Deadpool asked, grabbing a handful of Logan's shirt and pulling him up into a sit. "'Cause it felt like a psychic shockwave just went off and we were at ground zero. Also why aren't you fighting like a rabid weasel?"
Logan squinted, reaching out down a link that felt staticky and fragile in a way it hadn't since it was first established without being fully anchored.
Everything had happened so quickly, from Victor telling Teva to run and her taking off, already beginning to pull on their link to aid her in navigating through the woods. He'd been more than happy to help her, couldn't deny that there was something slightly intoxicating in sharing a body instead of just thoughts.
He'd felt their heartbeats sync up, hers slowing some to match his while he did his best not to distract her with the fact he felt otherwise helpless.
The more she'd pulled, the more he'd begun to understand more clearly what it was like to be her, to feel someone on a visceral level. Creed's emotions had felt like blood on an oil slick, made both Logan and Teva want to flinch from it.
Through her, he'd been able to see what Creed was doing, hear what he was saying, watch his body language and then feed Teva the information she needed to stay alive. They'd done it before but never on this level, never so quickly or so smoothly; as soon as he'd had the thoughts they were hers to use, his body memory became hers.
The pain of Creed backhanding her had made Logan recoil, too, and then he'd seen what was wrong.
She didn't think like him, didn't live like him. She didn't live with that wild, feral, not human thing in her head all the time, whispering dangerous and ugly urges that could keep her alive when everything else was telling her not to listen to her gut.
But as soon as he'd told her to take it, to use it the way he did, he'd understood on a fundamental level that she couldn't control it. He'd thought he was giving her a controlled storm without grasping that, in her hands, it would become a hurricane.
Logan remembered what it was like to not have that part of him, back when he was still a small, sickly little boy. To not have the feral rage, to not feel one step removed from everyone else.
So now he reached out down the link and tried to insulate it, tried to guide it so she was less nuke and more flame-thrower, but once it was out of his hands, he couldn't stop it. He had to trust things wouldn't go wrong, had to trust his mate would survive.
Deadpool shifted and then stood up, looking off in the direction the other two had gone. Even with his enhanced hearing, Logan couldn't catch much, but then again, he was straining every part of himself to not lose their connection when he could feel it fraying apart.
Logan surged to his feet when Creed put Teva on the ground, was halfway across the clearing before the back of his shirt was grabbed.
"Uh-uh, Wolvie. Not your fight."
"The fuck it ain't-"
His reply was cut off by searing pain in his head and then his hands. He looked down expecting to see his claws out, felt a moment of panic and confusion before he reached out again and saw what was happening with his mate.
Well, how 'bout that? It had never occurred to him that she might be able to manifest a psionic weapon like Psylocke's katana or the various firearms Quentin Quire favored.
He was terrified for her, but fuck him if he wasn't also proud and in awe of how resilient she continued to be. He wished he could see her in action from the outside but even as a passenger in her head, she was breathtaking, more graceful than he'd ever been even before he'd gotten the adamantium.
Creed's fear was nearly shocking. It made him hesitate the way Teva had, made him stop trusting experience and instinct; weapons made of psionic energy hurt in a different way from anything solid, made nerve endings and synapses stutter and burn worse than fire or acid.
Teva used that, let it guide her, all while feeding off Creed's fear, his hatred, but he finally used the one thing he had left: longer arms and brute strength.
She fought, couldn't not fight, but it wasn't enough. Not breaking his nose, not destroying his eye, he'd gone past the point where pain overrode action. And her borrowed healing factor could only take so much with her mind already overloading.
Logan pushed as much as he could at her, felt her reaching out to him in her panic and agony, and then he was on his knees again as pain beyond description stripped everything back, scoured away every last shred of sanity and awareness.
He thought he heard Deadpool move away again but every sense he had was on fire and he couldn't sort through any input, couldn't trust anything his senses were telling him.
~Teva?~
There was nothing, not even a twitch from the link. He couldn't even get into the room in his mind, the one she'd helped him build and shore up.
The world lurched and slowly he fell forward onto the ground, didn't even care that his hands were still bound, cuffs digging into his wrists and his stomach. Physical pain was a distant, abstract concept.
"Why do I always have to clean up his fucking messes?" he heard Deadpool grumble, then the sound of footsteps moving away, then nothing for a few minutes.
Logan was pulled abruptly back into physical awareness, his body being jerked upright until he was on his feet again.
Deadpool held him effortlessly with a grip on his shirt. "Look, man, I'm sorry for this. It ain't what I wanted."
"Fuck you," Logan spat, opening his eyes to see that Deadpool also had an unconscious Creed leaning against his legs. The bigger feral was a mess, the remains of his eye drying down his cheek, long blond hair matted with blood and leaves and mud.
Deadpool snorted. "Yeah, okay, dude. We got places to be." He touched a small gadget at his belt and Logan felt the distinct pull of a transportation device as the darkness from before reached up and pulled him under.
Everything was pain. She couldn't move without it, even breathing was a study in agony, like someone was pressing down on her chest with something both heavy and sharp.
She remembered waking up, staring up at a forest and the sky but not feeling afraid, just exhausted.
She dreamed of crawling through a briar patch, each inch a wash of pain, and every time she became aware again, she'd moved.
At some point she found shelter, something with familiar scents that spoke of safety but was also layered with the scent of an intruder, a predator. But there was a soft place to curl up, to sleep and hope that maybe, eventually, she'd wake up and everything would be okay.
It could have been moments or eons that she slept. Time ceased to have any meaning in that safe place, even as some part of her was aware of the passage of day and night.
~Teva.~
The voice was gentle, somewhat familiar, but she didn't want it there.
~We will be home soon, liebchen. You are safe and we will put you to rights.~
There was another presence, familiar in many ways, floating just in her periphery, never clear enough to pinpoint but she trusted it.
~I know you don't want to wake up, Teva, and I wish you could sleep through this.~
If she thought she knew what pain was before, she'd been wrong.
She woke to searing-bright light and voices around her that she didn't immediately recognize.
Kurt Wagner had seen some awful things in his life, but the sight of Teva's body when they found her ranked fairly high on that list. All four limbs had sustained numerous fractures and lay at unnatural angles; once they cut through her clothing and stripped her down to her tanktop and underwear, they could see the extensive damage to her sternum and ribs as well.
He'd wanted to look for Logan, see if there was any indication what had happened, at least until Betsy Braddock had assured him there was no sign of their Canadian teammate for miles in any direction.
The only way they'd make any headway would be to get Teva home and stabilize her, since she was the only one who knew what had happened.
Lying on one of the diagnostic beds in the mansion's medbay, she looked so small and broken, like some child's discarded doll.
"It worries me that this is the second time we've brought her home to find something drastic has happened," Hank McCoy said, directing the Shi'ar-tech scanner to do its work. "She should not have fully-healed fractures in a space of days, her healing factor isn't this strong."
"Why don't we focus on fixing this mess and then figuring out what caused it later?" Betsy said, trying not to bite off her words.
"Can you hold her down, Betsy?" Hank leaned hard with his hands on the Scottish woman's shoulders, trying to avoid the crookedly-healed fractures. "I'm afraid that actually touching her is going to make this worse."
Betsy grunted ascent, the purple glow that represented her psionic power flaring to life in the shape of a butterfly. "Keep talking to her, Kurt," she said, directing her TK to hold Teva down as gently as she could. "You're the only one she seems to trust."
"Ja, on it." Kurt shifted out of Hank's way, moving to stand at the head of the bed. No one in the room had any idea why he was the one she reacted to even slightly positively, seeing as they weren't close the way he and Logan had been. All Kurt knew was that she calmed somewhat when he spoke, and he was willing to do anything for his best friend's mate.
"You are safe, Teva, I promise you that. We cause you pain not to hurt you but to help you, and it will be over soon."
A low growl trickled from between Teva's gritted teeth but she stopped thrashing, eyes moving rapidly between the three before settling back on Kurt.
Hank reached for Teva's right arm, eyes fixed on the screen in front of him as guidance for where the fractures were, where the bones needed to be rebroken.
A loud crack sounded like a gunshot in the room and then Teva was screaming again.
"Keep holding her until until the bone knits correctly or this is going to take longer than any of us would like," Hank said.
"I've got it, Henry," Betsy replied. "I'm doing my best to block the pain signals but it's difficult to do both at once."
Hank gave a pleased sort of hum, watching as the scanner showed him blue rather than red to indicate healing.
"Alright, left arm next."
Teva screamed again, her voice already going hoarse, and she bucked against the telekinetic hold Betsy had on her.
Kurt continued talking to her, in both English and German. She didn't flinch away when he touched her, his fingers teasing away some of the tangles and forest debris in her hair, but even that wasn't enough to completely distract her when her left arm and then both legs were rebroken and set correctly.
"Betsy, I'm going to need you to help me with her sternum." Hank pointed with one claw to the screen. The fractures were like jagged red fault lines radiating outwards.
"I don't know if I can do three things at once," Betsy protested, "much as I've boasted about my abilities in the past."
Hank looked at the screen and then back at Teva before lifting his eyes to Betsy. "Focus on keeping her still and helping me, the pain will be momentary."
Kurt sucked in a breath at the thought but continued his murmuring, segueing into the Lord's Prayer in his native German. He knew Teva was just as much an agnostic as Logan, but he found he needed the strength his faith gave him.
"Alright," Hank said, "as quickly as possible, Betsy."
Purple psionic energy flared around Teva, concentrated around her torso.
Kurt found himself halfway across the room on his ass, fetched up against another diagnostic beg. He blinked a few times in confusion, found Betsy on the floor beside him, one hand thrown out. Hank was on the other side of the room.
"What just happened?" Kurt asked.
"Psychic blowback from her empathy in reaction to the pain, I'd wager," Hank replied, getting to his feet.
On the diagnostic bed, Teva was crouched, held back from doing anything more by Betsy's TK. The Scottish woman growled again, a soft, dangerous sound that didn't sound right coming out of her.
"We're not dealing with Teva," Kurt said, slowly rising as comprehension dawned. "Or at least not all of her. Something has happened with her bond with Logan, she is acting like him."
Teva focused on him, teeth bared in a snarl as blue blades of pure psionic energy slid from her clenched fists.
"Well, those are certainly new," Betsy remarked.
Teva felt the brush of the British woman's mind and shook her head, pushing her away, more out of habit than anything else. The only pain left was in her hands.
Kurt moved forward slowly, his odd three-fingered hands held up to show he was no threat. She recognized him as a friend, as a brother, in a way that didn't feel quite right.
"It is alright," he said softly, fearlessly reaching for her. "Betsy, let her go. She is scared but she won't hurt me."
Teva felt the force holding her disappear, the purple glow fading. The pain that had colored everything was gone now and she knew she was home, knew she was safe here.
Kurt touched her arm as she let her claws fade, his skin colder than she remembered it being, or maybe she was warmer.
"Are you alright?" he asked, relieved when she accepted his comfort, shifting so that she wasn't crouching on the bed. "Can you tell us what happened to you and Logan?"
"Logan?" Her voice was hoarse to her own ears, and then she collapsed forward into Kurt's arms, tears spilling down her face. She could feel his shock and concern.
"They took him."
