Chapter 8: Near Miss
Logan rode down the road, fast. He was furious.
Jubilee was his girl, his friend. They couldn't tell her not to hang out with him. Could they? Would she listen? His mind whirled, and he growled a little in anger as he revved the engine and sped up. Well, if they were going to take his little pal away, then they didn't need him. He was not going to hang around and watch her be miserable. He'd had enough of that.
He was a long distance down the road when he heard the sound of other motorbikes behind him. He took a quick glance back, and what he saw startled him.
There were three bikers behind him. Two of them were wearing helmets, but the third one wasn't, and what Logan saw of his face under the black bandana tied around the big head identified him quite clearly. He was the biker who had tried to pick a fight with him and Jubilee at the bar a week ago.
Logan growled low in his throat as he sped up, leaving the men behind, but not too far behind. He just wanted to put enough distance between them and himself so he could pick his own battleground. A fight was just what he needed to work his temper out on. Since he couldn't beat Scott up, this guy was the next best thing. He slowed until he got to an open area beside the road, just around a bend, then pulled over and parked along a grassy verge. There was a thick hedge along here, a hedge equipped with large, long thorns. He got off his bike, pushed it closer to the hedge, kicked the stand down, and leaned against it casually. Taking out his cigar, he lit it, and by the time the three bikers caught up with him, he was smoking it complacently.
They were looking for him on the road ahead of them, and as a result almost missed him completely. He called their attention to the shoulder with a whistle. "Hey! Ya lookin' for me?"
The three bikes came to a halt just past his little section of hedge. They turned their bikes (a Yamaha and a couple of Hondas, Logan noticed with a sneer; not a Harley like a real biker should ride) in a lazy circle until they were facing him, then they turned off the motors.
He gestured to the little pieces of crap they were riding. "Hey. Ya trash my bike fer parts for your little toys?" It was the surest way to get them angry and put them in a frame of mind to provide him with a real fight.
The leader, the man with the bandana, swung off his bike and eyed Logan up. "D'ya use parts offa yer chickie's bike t'fix yours?" he said, deriding the long hours of work Logan put into caring for his bike. Logan refused to rise to the bait.
"Did ya raid yer chick's kitchen drawer t' make yers?' he challenged back. "'Cause that's what it looks like from here. Looks like ya cut yer bike outta some tinfoil and silverware." He didn't have to pretend disdain for their imports; he'd always disliked the cheap Harley imitations. There was nothing better than a good Harley under you. Apparently Jubilee felt the same. He'd seen her bike; expensive; she'd had to save a lot to get it…but much better quality than the import she could have gotten for half the price. "And don't call her a chickie. She's worth more'n whatever piece o' trash yer goin' out with."
The man growled. Logan tensed imperceptibly but never broke his outwardly relaxed pose. His eyes were busy, scanning the man for weaknesses. "What's with the goons?" he nodded toward the other men. "Think yer so important ya gotta have an entourage?" He looked past the first man to the other two. "Looks like ya better take 'em back t' the factory ya got 'em from. They're missing something between the ears."
Before the leader could react to that taunt, the second man on the red Yamaha lunged for Logan, hands outstretched. He was obviously hoping to catch Logan off-guard, intending to wrap his hands around Logan's throat as Logan leaned insouciantly against the side of his bike.
Logan, however, had been watching the man. He saw the fast blink the man gave right before he launched himself into motion, the blink that betrayed his intended movement to someone as sharp-eyed as Logan. By the time he got halfway to Logan, Logan was no longer there.
Keeping himself low, Logan swiped his foot out sideways, catching the running man's foot in the crook of his own, tripping him and sending him stumbling face-first into the thorny bushes. The man was just barely saved from getting a face full of scratches by backpedaling furiously away from the maliciously sharp thorns.
The third man growled and lunged for Logan. Logan ducked under his swing, using his smaller size to his advantage to get under the man's guard, and gave him a savage punch in the ribs with one adamantium-knuckled fist. Not hard enough to break his ribs or cripple him permanently, or kill him; but just hard enough to send him down for a few minutes while Logan dealt with the other two men.
The second man had come back for another round. Logan tried a feint to the man's left side, but the guy was ready for a trick like it, and didn't fall for it. So Logan tried a tactic that usually worked for him; a low, hard, fast attack to the middle. He caught the man around the waist with both arms, bore him backward to the ground, and raised a fist to bash him in the face.
A hand caught his fist and hauled backward with surprising strength. The biker leader was behind him, grabbing his wrist, hauling him backward off the second man. He yanked his hand back, but the other man refused to let go. The second man reached upward, grabbing Logan's neck in both hands, trying to strangle him. Logan grabbed the man's hand with his other, keeping him from tightening his grip…but with each hand being held by one man, he wasn't making much headway.
"Let him alone!" He heard a voice shout from a distance. Jubilee? he thought, but he couldn't see her past the men he was fighting.
Until a stream of brightly-colored plasmoids streamed past him and exploded in the second man's midriff.
The hands around his neck relaxed, and he took a deep breath, clearing the fuzziness around the edges of his brain as he turned almost instinctively to deal with the second man holding onto his wrist. He popped his claws, the razor-sharp, gleaming adamantium only inches from the man's face, and growled quietly, "Yer a pathetic excuse for a man. Why don't ya get on that cheap little piece of tinfoil ya got an' git outta here? Unless ya want six inches o' adamantium buried in yer gut."
The man shook his head carefully as he saw the claws, then more furiously as he heard his two friends being paffed repeatedly by those plasmoids. "We're going," he said, 'We're going. Don't gotta tell me twice." Logan released them, watched as they scrambled onto their bikes. As the leader revved up and pulled out, he called back over his shoulder, "I'll remember this, ya mutie freak!"
"Ya better!" Logan was about to lunge toward his bike, with every intention of pursuing the other three men, but a hand on his arm stopped him. "Let them go, Wolvie."
He turned to face the owner of that hand, who was absolutely the last person he really wanted to see at that point. Although his eyes were still aglow with anger, and he looked formidable, the young woman standing in front of him didn't shudder or turn away. Instead, she met his eyes squarely and said, "Like you said, they're lowlifes. Why do you want to waste so much effort on them?"
He didn't answer her. "What are ya doin' here?" he said instead, reaching out and maneuvering his bike out of the thorn bushes. "Y'oughtta be back at the mansion."
Jubilee started to pull her bike upright after having let it fall on its side in the dust. It had a few more dents in it, but it wasn't much the worse for wear. "I wanted to be with you."
He gritted his teeth. "Cyke…said ya weren't ta hang around me." It hurt. Hurt that, although Logan didn't like Scott, he'd thought Scott knew how important Jubilee was to him, and how he'd never ever let anything happen to Jubilee if he could prevent it. He would never put her in danger.
Jubilee sniffed in disdain. "Since when did I do what old One-Eye says?" She swung astride her bike. "And since when did you pay any attention to what he said?"
"I heard what Chuck said." He lit another cigar and stuck it in his mouth as he swung a leg over the bike. "Go home, Jubes." He revved the engine.
Jubilee abandoned her bike and walked over to stand in front of him, in the middle of the road. "No."
He tried again. "Go home, Jubilee."
"Nope." She folded her arms. "Not going. Nuh-uh. No way. Not till you tell me why you got your boxers in a bunch."
Logan growled in his throat. He was not about to admit to Jubilee that if Xavier decided he wasn't to hang around Jubilee, he would probably obey that edict. Simply because it came from Charles Xavier, the only man Logan respected and whose orders Logan would follow in this matter. "Go home, Jubes."
She remained where she was.
He sighed and swung off his bike, about ready to pick her up and move her bodily out of his way if that was what it took. Before he got halfway to her, however, he heard the sound of a car approaching the bend…at high speed. At the speed that car was traveling, the driver would take the turn with only inches to spare and wouldn't stop in time to miss hitting the young woman in the middle of the road.
Logan exploded into motion, rushing forward and grabbing Jubilee. Time seemed to slow as he ordered his feet to move. His body seemed to be moving in slow motion, but the car seemed to be moving preternaturally fast. He wrapped his arms around her and flung himself to the ground above her, sheltering her as he waited for the inevitable crunch of the car plowing into him. His adamantium bones were unbreakable; he would be in a world of hurt until torn muscles and ligaments healed and internal damage mended, but he would endure it if it kept Jubilee safe. He heard her scream in terror as she finally heard the car coming around the turn, and then gravel sprayed both of them in the face as the car went tearing around the bend and on past them. Her fists grabbed handfuls of his jacket, and he instinctively tightened his arms around her as he ducked his head, sheltering her under him, protecting her. His heart slammed around in his chest as he thought about how close a call that was, and he remained crouched protectively over her for a long time after the car had passed.
"Wolvie?" she said at last, timidly. "I can't breathe." He loosened his arms fractionally, but continued to hold her in his arms as he climbed to his feet. Scott was right. He was right. He wasn't good for Jubilee to be around. She would have been killed if that car had hit her…and she wouldn't have been out here for the car to hit her if it hadn't been for him. The near-miss was his fault.
He pushed her away from him, looking her over as she took a moment to dust the gravel from her clothes, and made sure she was all right. "Go home, Jubes," he said roughly, climbing onto his bike.
"But…Logan…" he heard the confusion in her voice as he revved up.
He ignored her, repeating harshly, "Go home! I mean it!" He peeled out of the little grassy area and headed off down the highway in the direction the car had been going. He heard Jubilee's soft, despairing cry behind him, but he couldn't bear to look back and see her, standing disconsolately in the middle of the road staring after him.