Woo hoo! A Thursday post on an actual Thursday. Hot diggity damn. I realize it's not going to be Thursday too much longer, but I'm pretty impressed with myself for getting this one up tonight. I was out with a girlfriend this evening after a long day. We rocked some fish and chips at an Irish pub. Glorious! In any case, I will have y'all know that I gave up some really good sleep for this! lol
Onward
(to bed)
Heh.
The battle with the Friends of Humanity was unexpectedly brutal and the aftermath even more so. Their remote mountain stronghold was still burning in the trees. The smoke hung thick and heavy between the rough trunks, scenting the air with bitter ash and the acrid stink of cordite and charred human flesh. To a man, they had chosen death over surrender.
The Wolverine was riled up, volatile and unstable, his hands wet with gore and his sensitive ears still ringing from the multiple explosions that had rocked the small valley all afternoon. Boobytraps. Suicide runs. Ordinance, small and large. The terrible pleading from the poor mutant souls imprisoned inside. The screams of the dead and dying.
At one point, the wind had shifted and through the smoke and he'd caught a brief glimpse of the Rogue. Even battered and bloody, she'd been intent on her opponent. Not looking for help. Not needing to be saved— just focused on the dirty job at hand. Simultaneously a tool for the cause and a burning sword of justice, delivered with grim satisfaction and a bloodthirsty light glinting fiercely in her eyes.
Logan's loss of situational awareness had cost him two body shots from a large caliber handgun at close range. Not even his enraged bellow of pain as he went on the offensive had distracted Rogue from her mission. He was glad, aware that her margin of error was much smaller than his own. The Wolverine smiled darkly as another FoH soldier bled out into the forest floor.
Eventually, the battle wound down. The silence between the sporadic pops of gunfire became longer and longer. The screams and shouts died to a whisper until the crackling of the flames was only broken by the low chatter on their coms as the teams checked in. 'Ro and Hank. Kitty and Bobby. Rogue and Pete. The Firecracker was stomping around like an elephant in the woods to his left. She was bitching under her breath as she tried to keep up with his punishing pace while he finished sweeping the surrounding terrain for any remaining hostiles.
When the Rogue appeared out of the smoke, panting, and pushing her face into the wind, he froze. Generally, Logan tried to stay the hell away from her in the aftermath of a battle. It made the Wolverine too unpredictable and the distance between bloodlust and carnal lust was a short one, even without Rogue's musky scent, thick with blood and sweat and victory pulling him deeper into that beautiful black morass.
She'd been fighting hand to hand. Her uniform jacket was missing, probably torn from her at some point during a violent struggle. She had leaf litter in her hair and her shirt was dirty and ripped. His long aggressive strides ate up the distance between them in moments. He knew better than to run his hands over her to assure himself she was whole and unharmed, but the urge was there, stronger than ever.
He took inventory with all his heightened senses instead, noting each oozing welt and bleeding scrape. Mud and blood and soot. Aware of what he was doing, her chin lifted defiantly but she didn't try to stop him. Perhaps some part of her understood it wasn't something either of them could control.
She was favoring her right ankle a bit, but otherwise seemed to be roughly in one piece. His gaze swung from the scratches on her neck to her torn shirt. Through the shredded material he saw something that made his breath catch. For a moment, it felt as if the world had stopped.
The faint tracing of silvery marks on her belly told him more in one brief glimpse than she had in months of heated conversation. The marks were faded, a pale iridescence that screamed the truth louder than any words.
She'd had a baby.
A baby.
As shattered as he was, he couldn't quite wrap his mind around the magnitude of that truth. Even the animal was bewildered, howling in confusion and pain from this new revelation.
Without thinking, he stepped closer in his shock and pushed the ragged edge of the shirt aside to expose them fully. His jaw clenched. There was no mistaking the truth. She had carried a child under her heart; her belly had swelled to accommodate new life.
And that had clearly left a mark, inside and out.
Marie recoiled instantly from his intrusive touch. Her body language screamed at him that she considered what he'd just done the deepest betrayal. A violation of everything they'd built between them in the seven years since she'd called out to him in that bar in Laughlin City.
He stood unmoving, stunned. Blinded by pain and rage. Years of shared history undermined by this terrible omission. A house of cards built on a lie, just like she'd said.
All this time. All of it. Lies. She'd let him bare his soul and in return, she'd fed him just enough crumbs to string him along. To get what she'd wanted out of him while never actually giving up her heart's most meaningful secrets.
Jerking her shirt together, she stumbled backwards, barely keeping her feet in her haste to get away from him. Logan stared in disbelief, wanting to follow as she vanished into the smoke, but the fear and revulsion in her eyes kept him rooted in place. Even the first time — when he'd been more animal than man and she'd been little more than a girl — even then, she hadn't looked on him with fear.
The world spun on, uncaring of his emotional turmoil. Night fell. Sparks popped and hissed from the dying fires, floating up into the sky with tails of orange light blazing behind them. Logan crouched in the shadows, head bent and shoulders hunched against the sharp wind.
His stomach roiled with the acid truth and the realization that Marie wasn't afraid of him — she was afraid of being vulnerable. Afraid of him knowing the truth. Maybe she thought he wouldn't look at her the same way. She was right to think that. He did see her with new eyes. And new wounds, bleeding on the inside. Maybe she thought whatever lay between them wasn't strong enough to bear the weight of some truths without shattering under the strain.
Maybe she was right to think that, too.
He can see why she would. There was a trail of wreckage behind her, starting with that first boy she kissed. Then Erik. Charles. Her father. Bobby. LeBeau. Him. People she loved and lost. People who hurt her. Violated her. People she counted on who let her down. People who abandoned her when she most needed their strength.
He got it.
But it wasn't a free pass.
There was no welshing on a deal made with the Wolverine.
Her pointed absence said she knew it, too.
~ooOoo~
This time, Logan didn't let her run after they arrived back at the Mansion.
He wasn't in the mood to indulge her need for space. He wanted answers; and failing that— a confrontation. Some sort of violent physical catharsis before that putrid wound festering between them poisoned them both beyond their ability to recover. He could feel the insidious taint of it even now, bitterness and doubt clouding his thoughts. Pulling him, prodding him to close himself off. To rip and tear and slash. She wasn't the only one who felt betrayed.
They weren't even out of the lower levels before he'd cornered her in an empty hallway. "Hey." It came out hard. He was angry and hurt and both showed on his normally stoic face.
"What?" she snapped, turning sharply on her heel. Her body language said she was expecting a fight. Instead of leaning against the wall, she'd kept the open corridor to her back. An easy avenue of escape, if she needed it.
She fucking well might.
"You know what," he growled, feeling the sharp stick of metal pushing between his knuckles.
Her eyes were on the tips of gleaming adamantium protruding from his fist. She took a step closer and pulled off her gloves. "Go fuck yourself."
"You'd like that, huh? As long as someone else is there so you can keep on pretendin' it ain't about you." The truth, delivered with his special brand of brutality. His gaze flicked from the gloves on the floor to her face, twisted with savage expectation. She was ready to fight. He wanted her to bleed, but not like that. It sharpened his ire. "But what's another lie at this point, right, honey?"
Honey. It wasn't a deliberate choice, but marked the change between them all the same. Distance that hadn't ever been there before. The others were always honey. Never her.
"You've got some balls to say that to me when you've been running from the truth since we met." True, but it wasn't that truth he was interested in right now.
"Bullshit. I walked away from an adolescent girl throwing herself at a man who fuckin' knew better than to stick around to see how that'd turn out." Her chest heaved in anger and his eyes were drawn to her ruined shirt and the tracing of faint lines beneath. A baby. He couldn't escape any of the questions that knowledge forced on him. "I guess we both know how that turned out now."
"I am NOT having this conversation here," she hissed. Her dark gaze flickered worriedly down the hall. As if anyone would have been stupid enough to follow the Wolverine in that mood, or to eavesdrop on either of them when their blood was up.
"You say that like ya had some intention of ever havin' that conversation."
"You have no right to judge me. I never promised you a damn thing."
It was an unfortunate choice of words that dredged up a poignant moment from their shared past. The contrast between that moment and this one hardened his heart— an automatic response to stem the bleeding. "How many meaningful connections you gonna piss away, Marie?"
Her naked fingers twitched in warning.
He saw the flicker of movement and read the intent on her face. The flash of gold died in his eyes and his bearing changed as he came to an internal decision. A fork in the road. His head dropped. He could leave. Give them both a chance to cool down. It would be the kindest choice, but he was never one for taking the easy path.
"Do it," he rasped, abandoning his defensive stance and opening his arms in invitation.
It wasn't submission. It was a dare. A bluff called. A hail Mary. A lifetime of secrets offered on the altar of touch. And the ugly truth was that it was easy to make those seemingly reckless gestures with his heart and his body when experience told him that she'd probably never be able to open herself up that way again. It allowed him to salvage his battered pride and to put her on the defensive.
Her eyes widened with surprise and hurt and then narrowed with suspicion. She knew him too well. The Wolverine didn't roll over, and he sure as hell didn't back down. Especially when he had his prey on the run.
"Look," she said sharply, taking a step back. "I'll be at Jack's later tonight. When you've gotten your head out of your ass, come find me." She was sure and strong— and mad, and that was his bluff called, too.
Well, fuck.
Up next: Incinerate. Y'all know what's coming. It's pure physics. For every action, there's an equal — and opposite — reaction.
Shit's about to get real.