Chapter 18

Logan and Raven quickly found the building Sonya had described, and discovered an unguarded door at the rear of the building. Raven stepped up and pulled on the handle, but it was locked.

With an exasperated sigh, she asked, "Now what?"

"Don't look at me. You're the expert at Breaking and Entering."

Raven sighed again, but let his comment pass. She gazed around the dark alley, her hand on her hip, then pointed up at a window about ten feet above them.

"If I could get up there," she mused aloud, looking around once more for something to stand on. Finding nothing, she turned back to Logan. "Boost me up."

He stared at her, convinced that she was kidding. When he saw that she was serious, he shook his head even as he laced his fingers together to make her a foothold. Raven placed her hands on his shoulders and put her right foot in his hands, then reached up and grabbed for the window ledge.

"Guess it's higher than I thought," she whispered to him when she realized she wasn't high enough. Logan just growled. She wasn't heavy, but her boot was squashing his fingers. He pushed up, trying to lift her a little higher.

"Hang on, I've got it," she said then, and placed her left foot on his right shoulder. With a quiet grunt, she pushed her other foot out of his hands and set it on his left shoulder. Not wanting to cause him any more discomfort than necessary, she made a quick grab for the window ledge, and this time her hands easily found their grip. Her feet left Logan's shoulders and scaled the wall as she pulled herself up onto the ledge.

When he felt her weight being lifted from him, Logan heaved in a sigh, then looked up at the window where she was perched, trying to raise the pane without making too much noise.

"Uh, Raven?"

She glanced down at him impatiently. "What?" she hissed.

"How'd you plan on getting me inside?"

"I'll come down and unlock the door." He shot her a look, and she frowned. "What?"

With a sigh, Logan slid out his claws and took a step closer to the wall of the building. As she watched, he stabbed his right claws into the bricks at eye level, then extended his left hand and repeated the motion, continuing until he had pulled himself up slightly below and to the side of her.

She looked at him hanging there, and asked him, "Why didn't you just do that before?"

He tried to shrug, but it came out lopsided. "You didn't ask."

She made a noise in her throat, and turned back to the window. She finally made an opening wide enough for them to fit through, and glanced down at him triumphantly. When she turned back to the window, she was startled by a man's face peering down at them, and she moved away instinctively as he stuck his hands out the window to make a grab at her. Forgetting she was sitting on a narrow window ledge, she moved too far, and soon found herself falling off her precarious perch.

Logan had seen her start to slip, but he didn't really have a way to catch her, since his claws were lodged in the wall. Making a split decision, he freed his right hand and retracted the claws, grabbing her arm as she fell past him. He shuddered as her body slammed into the wall, but at least she hadn't hit the ground.

The man in the window saw that Logan was now defenseless, and began to crawl out onto the ledge after them. Logan glanced helplessly down at Raven, who nodded back to him; she understood what he was about to do, and knew that it was the only thing he could do. Extending his arm as far as he could, he released her wrist, and she half-leapt, half-fell to the ground below. She landed in a crouch, but her legs gave, and she fell to her knees.

When he saw that she'd made it down safely, Logan glanced back up at the other man, who was now scaling down the brick wall headfirst, like a gecko. He grinned humorlessly at Logan, sending a shiver of disgust down Logan's spine.

"Wolverine," the man hissed. "What an honor."

With a snarl, Logan again engaged the claws on his right hand, holding them up as a warning. The man simply laughed.

"Ah, you and your overgrown fingernails. What're you gonna do, scratch out my eyes?"

"Nah. I was thinkin' of knockin' off your head."

The man leapt at Logan, landing on his back so that only Logan's one set of claws was keeping them both from falling. Logan wasn't worried about losing his grip – he knew his adamantium claws would hold – but he didn't know what weapons this Lizard Man was carrying, or what other abilities he possessed. He decided that he didn't want to stick around to find out.

Logan braced his feet against the wall, then used them to push off, at the same moment swinging around so he could slam the Lizard man's back against the brick wall. The hit knocked the wind out of both men, but Logan recovered instantly, and swung back around to attack again. The other man managed to regain his grip on the wall and sat there, catching his breath. Before the other man could make another move, Logan dislodged himself and leapt over to the man, sinking one set of claws into the brick only inches from the man's face. He grabbed Lizard Man with his free hand and yanked him up, so that his back was against the wall. The man couldn't get a grip on the wall, since he was facing the wrong way, and fear now set itself into his dark eyes.

"Go ahead, Logan," he spat. "You're just doing what any animal would, after all."

Logan glared at the man, who began to laugh, and Logan was torn between killing him and, well, not killing him.

Raven was standing almost directly below them, watching the scene unfold. She noticed the man's hand moving under the hem of his shirt, reaching for something, and when his shirt moved she could see a glint of metal tucked into the waist of his pants. Though she knew Logan couldn't be killed by a bullet, she knew that it would make him lose his grip on the wall.

Though her fear nearly choked her, she called up to Logan, "Watch out!"

Logan then saw the man reaching for his gun, and he instantly sank his left hand's claws through the man's chest and into the bricks, impaling him to the wall. As the Lizard man choked and gasped, unable to get enough air into his deflated left lung, Logan leaned closer to him and growled, "That was for Raven."

Then, he followed with his right claws, piercing the man's heart, and added, "And that's for my daughter."

A look of sudden realization crossed the man's face for a moment. Then, his head fell forward and he grew still.

"Raven?" Logan called down into the darkness, trying to catch a glimpse of her pale face. Finally, she emerged from the shadows and looked up at him.

"You okay?" He asked her.

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah. Watch out, will ya? I gotta drop something." He put emphasis on the last word, and she nodded and moved to the far side of the back alley.

With a grunt, Logan yanked his left hand out of the man and stuck it into the wall just beside his body, then did the same with his right. The man fell from beneath Logan, and landed with a thud on the pavement below, his lolling head bouncing off a metal pipe on the way down.

"Logan?" Raven called up, walking in a wide arc around the man's body.

"Yeah?"

"Now I'm the one stuck down here, only I don't have claws."

Logan chuckled, only adding to her frustration. Then, he replied, "I'll go open the door for you. Sit tight for a minute."

Raven sighed as she watched him climb back up to the window and disappear inside. She'd discovered that she had a Logan-sized bruise developing around her wrist, and her shoulder ached where she'd slammed against the wall, but anything was better than the alternative.

A few moments later, she heard a click, and the back door swung open. Logan was holding the knob, and now he beckoned for her to get inside. She hurried past him into the building, and he quietly shut and relocked the door, then got in front of her. He put up his hand to stop her – which she did – and then listened carefully for any approaching footsteps. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he held out his hand, and she took it, entwining her slender fingers with his.

"You sure you can recognize this guy?" he murmured in her ear, his warm breath tickling the delicate skin on her jaw.

She nodded. "Sonya's good with descriptions. Very observant, that girl is."

He didn't reply, but the squeeze he gave her hand was answer enough for her.

They soon reached a stairwell at the end of the hall, and Logan pulled the door open and stuck his head inside.

"Clear," he said, slipping around the doorjamb as silently as a cat. Raven copied his motion perfectly, then pointed downward.

"We need to go down five flights. That's where all the important 'stuff' is."

Logan grimaced. "Why can't it ever be on the first floor?"

She smiled sympathetically at him, but began to descend the winding stairs. "You're so old, Logan."

"Yeah, I get that a lot," he responded. "Now, shut up before someone hears you."

"Yes, Dad," she whispered up to him, and he scowled.

"Raven."

She grinned at him, but kept silent the rest of the way down.

When they reached the correct floor, Raven placed her back against the wall beside the door and nodded to Logan, who put his hand on the handle, ready to pull it open. Just then, the handle turned from the other side, and he took a step back in surprise. The door swung open wide, and silhouetted by the light in the hallway beyond was a man in a white lab coat. Though Raven could only see a dim profile, she recognized him instantly.

"It's him," she said to Logan. Not leaving the man a chance to react, Logan grabbed him by his collar and pulled him into the stairwell.

"Lock the door," he ordered her, and she complied.

Slamming the man against a wall, Logan glared at him, then growled, "Surprised to see me, Doctor?"

As the initial shock wore off, the doctor shook his head.

"I knew someday you would find me. So, now you know all about her."

Suppressing the urge to crush the man's head, Logan shouted, "Her name is Sonya!"

Though the doctor was obviously afraid of Logan, his voice was calm as he asked, "What do you want from me, Wolverine?"

"We want the antidote," Raven replied.

When she spoke, the doctor seemed to finally realize that Raven was there. His gray eyes widened as he stated, "I know you. You used to work for us."

Raven shook her head. "I never worked for you. I joined you only to gain information on you."

Impatient, Logan shook the man once, and the doctor's gaze shifted back to him.

"Where is it?" Logan asked, but the doctor merely shrugged.

"There isn't one. And even if there was, I would die before I gave it to you."

"Only too happy to oblige," Logan replied, taking a step back and unsheathing his claws.

"No, wait!" Raven shouted, and both men turned to gaze at her. "He's lying."

"I most certainly am not," the doctor replied, clearly offended.

"You sure, Raven?" Logan asked.

She nodded, and he slid back his claws before grabbing the doctor once more.

"Come on, Doc," he snarled, pulling him toward the door that Raven had since unlocked. "Time to make a house call."

As they made their way through the maze of hallways, Logan noticed that they didn't run into anyone else on the floor.

"You the only one here, Doc? Pullin' a little late-night mad scientist, huh?"

The doctor grinned at Logan's sarcasm, but didn't reply. When they reached the room Sonya had seen when she first entered Raven's mind, Logan pushed the doctor into a chair and stood in front of him, his mere presence menacing enough to prevent the man from attempting to escape.

"Hurry up," he warned Raven as she sprinted over to a row of refrigeration units. There were five of them, with two drawers to each unit, so she decided to pull all of them open at once, then close each one as she search them. When she got to the second drawer on the third unit, she found what she was looking for. An entire rack of vials was labeled "Anti-virus", followed by a string of numbers. She pulled out the rack and walked over to where the doctor sat, a self-satisfied grin on his face.

"No antidote, huh?" she asked him, holding out one of the vials.

"Perhaps I was…less than honest. But which one is the right anti-virus for your 'Sonya'? There are 20 different strains there. Some could prove quite fatal if they were to be injected into her."

"Then tell us which one it is," Logan said in a low voice.

The doctor laughed aloud. "And if I don't? If you kill me, you'll never know which one to use."

Logan's eyes turned stormy, and his expression frightened even Raven.

"No," he said quietly, leaning down to rest his hands on the arms of the chair, "I wouldn't kill you. I would find your family, and make you watch as I killed them, one at a time."

Shaken, the doctor's eyes filled with fear. Softly, he replied, "I don't know which one it is. But my records should be able to tell you that."

Logan straightened back up. "Good. Where are they?"

"In my office, at the end of this hall on the right."

"I'll go," Raven offered, but Logan shook his head.

"No. You stay here with Frankenstein. If he moves, well, y'know."

"Got it."

Logan stalked out of the room and made his way to the room the doctor had indicated. He tried the door, but it was locked.

"Of course," Logan mumbled. He took a step back and kicked the door. He heard the hinges snap, and another light shove sent it crashing down into the middle of the room.

"What was that?" the doctor asked when they heard the crash from down the hall, but Raven only shrugged.

"That was Logan. 'Opening' your door."

Logan stepped over the door and scanned the room for some kind of filing system. He found it occupying an entire wall under a window. Luckily, each drawer was labeled by date, not alphabetically as he'd feared, since he didn't know Sonya's birth mother's name, and he doubted they'd go by either "Logan" or "Wolverine". Counting backward, he figured out Sonya's birth year, and opened the corresponding drawer. He rifled through the dozens of files, looking only at the section indicating the birth father. After about five minutes of searching, he finally came to the right file, and yanked it out of the cabinet.

"Did you find it?" Raven asked as he entered the room, and he held up the file in response. Favoring the doctor with a scowl, he handed the papers to Raven, who had to set downt eh rack of test tubes so she could use both of her hands. She flipped through the stapled pages, scanning them for the name of the virus.

"Aha!" She exclaimed, and Logan came to stand beside her, reading over her shoulder as she read aloud, "Zero, six, four, zero, zero, one, seven."

With a hopeful glance at Logan, she searched the vials for one with those same numbers. It was the second-to-last vial in the rack, in the last row. Relieved, she pulled it out and handed it to Logan, who held it up to the light, inspecting it as if it were a precious gem. Then, he slipped it into his jacket's inside pocket.

"Come on," he beckoned to Raven, and they started to leave. The doctor stood up then, his expression one of worry.

"What about me?" He asked Logan.

"You," Logan pondered for a moment before uttering a reply. "You find somewhere peaceful to retire. And tell your Brotherhood lackeys that if I ever see them, I'll come looking for you."

Leaving the doctor there to consider Logan's warning, he and Raven made their way out of the building and back to the jet.

XXXXX

It was still dark by the time Raven set the jet on its hidden landing pad on the basketball court. As the platform lowered automatically into the ground, she glanced over at Logan, who was still staring at the vial in his hands, turning it over and over.

"Hey," she said, as a series of beeps told them the jet was securely docked, "we're here."

Logan nodded and released his seatbelt, which had been repaired. He slipped the tube back into his pocket, then opened the hatch and waited for Raven to climb down the ladder first. When she reached the bottom, he grabbed the handrails and let himself slide down until his feet touched the concrete floor of the hangar.

"Showoff," she murmured, just loud enough for his sensitive ears to hear, and he shrugged.

"You know you love it."

She had no argument for that, so she just gave him a crooked grin and made her way to the elevator. When the doors opened, she stepped inside and pressed the button for the mansion's first floor. Logan made it on just before the doors began to close.

"Sorry about earlier," he said as they began their ascent, and she game him a puzzled look.

"What?"

"When I dropped you."

"Oh." She waved away his concern. "Wasn't much of a choice. Besides, I'm okay."

"Good."

The elevator stopped then, and the doors slid open on the darkened first floor. Raven headed for the kitchen to ease her growling stomach, while Logan, who had heard the television on, walked toward the living room. He was expecting to see the boy that never slept sitting on the couch.

Instead, he saw Peter there, his arm cradled around Sonya, who was sleeping against his broad chest, her legs curled up underneath her. When Peter heard the floor squeak, he craned his head back over his shoulder and saw Logan standing there.

"She wouldn't sleep while you were gone," he explained in a whisper, "so I put on a movie for her. She's been asleep for about two hours now. I think my arm's asleep, too."

Logan grinned. "You think you can slip out from under her?"

Peter tried to move, but she settled even closer against him in her sleep. He shook his head.

"Okay," Logan said, "I'll pick her up and take her to her bed."

Silently walking across the living room, he slid his arm under her knees, while Peter pushed her head up so Logan could cradle it in his other arm. In one swift motion, Logan lifted her off the couch and turned toward the door.

Sonya felt herself being lifted into the air, but she was too exhausted to open her eyes. Instead, she listened to the heart that beat in her ear, to the rumble in Logan's chest as he spoke quietly to Raven, who had come out of the kitchen just then.

"Want me to help you?" She heard Raven ask.

"Sure," he replied as he continued on down the hall. She heard the door to her room squeak on its hinges, then another squeak as Logan stepped on a loose floorboard.

"Every time," he grumbled slightly above a whisper, and Sonya smiled in the darkness. He carefully set Sonya down on top of her rumpled sheets, and Raven pulled the blanket up to Sonya's chest, smoothing it around her until it felt like a cocoon, warm and secure. Raven murmured something to Logan, and Sonya heard the floor creak as she left the room. Though it was completely quiet for a long while, Sonya knew Logan was still there, looking at her, and she had the sudden urge to sit up and wrap her arms around him, to tell him how afraid she had been for him, but she lay still.

Finally, Logan sighed softly and leaned down to kiss her forehead.

"G'night, Princess," he whispered, then turned and crept out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Snuggling down into her covers, Sonya smiled again. And as she pictured Logan's charming smile, sleep came easily to her now.

XXXXX

"Bobby? You awake?"

Bobby opened his eyes and saw Logan standing in the doorway.

"Yeah," he replied, motioning for the man to enter, "I was just thinkin'."

Logan took a seat in the folding chair. "Yeah? 'Bout what?"

Bobby shrugged. "Just stuff." Logan was about to ask him to elaborate, when Bobby asked, "So, how'd it go? Tell me everything."

Logan shook his head. "I'm not sure that's such a good idea…"

"Oh, come on," the young man interrupted with a pout. "Look at me, Logan. Who am I gonna tell? Anyone who comes down here most likely already knows."

Logan stared at him for a while, debating with himself. Finally, he replied, "Okay. Whaddya want to know?"

Bobby pulled himself up until he was eye-level with Logan. "Earlier, you said that you were someone's 'Dad'. I've been wrackin' my brain to figure out who, but I can't."

"I knew you'd try. But she doesn't exactly resemble me very much," Logan hinted.

"Okay, so it's a girl," Bobby mused. As a thought hit him, his face suddenly took on a look of horror. "Please, don't tell me –"

Logan burst out laughing. "No," he finally managed, "it's not Rogue."

"Thank God."

"Care to guess again, or should I just tell you?"

After a moment, Bobby replied, "Just tell me. My brain's fried."

Logan chuckled again. "Sonya is my daughter."

"Holy shit!" Bobby exclaimed, then clapped his hand over his mouth as he realized what he'd said, and how loud he'd said it. After he removed his hand, he asked, "How did that happen?"

Logan didn't reply, but the way he arched his eyebrow forced Bobby to rephrase himself.

"I mean," Bobby began, "obviously I know how it happens. I was just wondering…"

Logan decided to put Bobby out of his misery, and simply started from the beginning, when Raven had sneaked into the mansion.

"Wow," Bobby breathed after Logan had finished. "Who would've thought you'd have a kid out there?"

"No kiddin'," Logan said, then changed the subject. "How you doin' with those comics?"

"Great. They're pretty awesome. Thanks for letting me borrow them."

"Who said anything about 'borrowing'?" Logan asked, and Bobby's eyes grew so wide that Logan feared they'd fall out of his head. He grinned at the young man as he stood up to leave. "I want you to have 'em. I just wanted you to promise to take care of 'em. Y'know, 'cause they're worth a lot of money."

"Logan, I can't," Bobby protested, but the man made a noise in his throat, and his protest died away.

"I got too much stuff layin' around here, anyway. Now shut up about it, or I'll break your other leg," Logan added with a grin.

"No problem. Thanks again, Logan."

"Don't mention it," Logan replied, holding out his hand. Bobby shook it firmly, and Logan noticed that his thick bandages had been replaced with only a light wrapping of gauze. He was glad to see that; it meant that Bobby was healing and would soon be able to go back upstairs with the rest of the kids.

With a final wave, which Bobby returned, Logan left the underground level to find Raven. He didn't need to look very hard, it turned out. As soon as the elevator door slid open to the first floor, he found himself staring directly at her.

"Hey," he greeted her, stepping off the elevator and into the hall.

"Hey, yourself," she replied, and reached up to kiss his cheek. "I was coming to find you, to remind you to drop the anti-virus off downstairs. Storm said she'd work on it tonight."

Logan slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. "Aagh. I was just down there, too."

Raven grinned at his frustration. Even angry, he was fairly irresistible to her. She reached over and tapped the DOWN button on the wall. The small display above the elevator door began to count from 3 down to 1.

"That's okay," she said, wiping a smudge of her lipstick from his cheek. "I'll ride down with you."

Logan hooked his arm around her waist, pulling her to him, and asked huskily, "And just what do you think we'll have to do on the way?"

"Hopefully," she quietly replied, "anything but think."