Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made from this work.

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Waking from what felt like a short nap, Victor had a look out his window only to admit he couldn't tell if the sun was going down or coming up until he remembered just where he was. Digging through the foggy memories of everything before he'd given his eyes a rest, it came back to him in her scent. It was all over his sheets, his little Lee, just lingering in his room like a ghost whispering in his ear.

Throwing off the flimsy fabric and finding his feet, he looked over himself in the mirror to see the pale flesh that hinted at how bad his wounds had been. Getting some sun was in his future, just like he'd promised her back before the job had gone sideways. His wardrobe was open, full of clothes now vintage even if they'd been bought new. Trailing a finger over a row of dress shirts, he found an empty hangar and felt a smirk tug at his lips, liking where the morning was already headed.

He let that ghost whisper in his ear to lead him on, exploring a house he'd only ever known as a blueprint and photographs. The sauna was full of potential, her scent tickled pink at finding it. He could imagine them lounging together spent and sweaty, letting the heat ease away the ache of weary muscles. She marked her turf in the gym, visions of her skin glistening from exertion assaulting him as he found her favourites and noticed a few of his own in them.

"Spot ya anytime..." Victor whispered at the weight bench, envisioning her laid out and prone, trusting him to take up her burden if she faltered.

The kitchen nearly killed him, a tale told in spices and the growl of his stomach. The cupboards weren't bare by any means, he had people who had people, and those people had people who kept them stocked without knowing who they worked for. Opening the fridge, he smiled at the leftovers neatly wrapped up for him.

Digging in, her ghost danced in the corner of his eye, flitting from the stove to the cutting board and everywhere in between. She rummaged, she hadn't ransacked, and everything she found in her search was neatly laid out in one little corner, ready for later. Just maybe he'd get her to cook for him, enjoy everything fresh and fragrant, not the cold cast offs that were filling the hole in his gut...tasty they might be.

He caught up to her in the study, reading through a thick book and peeking at him over the top of it. Her eyes ran over him as his own devoured her, and her scent told that she liked everything she saw just as he did. Her borrowed shirt was left unbuttoned, knees drawn up and her legs hanging over the armrest of the chair she had curled up in. She wasn't a single bit shy as he enjoyed the view her pose offered, his interest was told by the stiffness he suffered.

"You eat?" Jubilee asked in a quiet voice, her answer given with a lick of his tongue over his pearly whites fit for a predator.

He liked that she was getting used to him strutting around stark naked, he didn't have anything to be ashamed of and neither did she. Just the same, a dame wearing his shirt was a sight to behold, something he'd learnt back in Chicago. It was every bit the right kind of erotic accent that marked her as his. He didn't go asking her what she was reading, it was told right along the spine, just some bookworms musings on the Korean War.

There were others around, a few littering a desk and some just piled up on the floor, all of them his wars laid out in black and white one way or another. He always figured someday he'd have a look through them and see if he couldn't find himself, and by the bookmarks a few had it looked like that day had caught up to him.

"Good eye." Victor said with a bit of surprise as he opened up to one of the marked pages.

It was a bit blurry, just a shadow in the background just like all the history of the world he'd been caught up in, but it was him alright. Jimmy had his back to the camera, but following a man into as many wars as he had, Victor knew it was him. She found a few more in the battles he'd fought, picking him and his brother out, always caught shying away from the cameras as they had learnt to do early on.

"Just gotta know how to look..."

She was subdued and he let her be, something in her scent said she was primed and ready to go, and as much as he wouldn't mind lighting that fuse...he was growing to like the place. They marked it together in sweat and blood that first night, his beast and whatever fierceness she feared left to run too wild.

The Hand weren't known to give up lightly, he knew that much. Try as they might, all it took was an errant breeze to betray them, to tell of the ones that shadowed him to what had been meant as his last stand...but was starting to feel like something more. He wasn't planning on dying, not today or the next or even the day after that, it was time to get on the offensive and teach some folks just what happened when you got on the wrong end of El Tigre.

"Guessing you ain't ever killed a man, eh?"

He knew the answer to that question and so did she, she crossed a line last night or the night before, just whenever the hell it really was. But there was a difference between just reacting and deciding it was time to end a man, there was a whole mess of ugly that had to become that moment when you got ready to kill someone. Somewhere along the line he had become them, and they couldn't afford to play nice any longer.

She closed her book and hid behind it, pressed it to her brow and breathed deep the leather that spoke of all the death inside, from one cover to the next. He saw it now, she'd been looking for him and Jimmy in all those wars, looking for them to lead by example. She'd been preparing herself ever since she walked out that door back in his bedroom, from hitting the gym to filling her belly in the kitchen.

He smiled at her as their eyes met, they were hard, but they weren't cold. The cold ones were for those already dead inside. That wasn't their fight. Theirs was about living, about being the last ones standing when it was all over. She found her feet, back straight and ready to learn to hurt someone. He couldn't keep the claws out of his touch as he trailed fingers down her cheek, he let her have her tears.

If there was one thing he knew it was getting in over your head, him and Jimmy alike, he'd seen his share of men in those wars born out of boys who had that same look in their eyes as his little Lee did. When it came down to you or them, it wasn't a question at all, you fought all the way down into the dirt, tooth and nail until it was over and you were the only one to walk away.

As much as he wanted to teach the Hand a lesson in biting off more than they could chew, there were some ugly ones he had to get to first.

"This is gonna hurt me a lot more'n it'll hurt you, don't go proving me wrong..." Victor whispered in the dim light.

Her tears were already stale and dry, the tang of blood washing over them telling of a lip bit too hard in stubborn refusal to cry anymore. The Hand weren't worth a squirt of piss let alone her tears, his beast had an even worse opinion of the matter, gnashing teeth and ready to tear out the throat of anything or one that so much as looked at his mate.

"Instinct only gets ya so far, everything else is taught." Nobody was born a killer, not even him.

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