The next time Rogue woke, Logan’s skin was warm and back to it’s natural olive color. The dark hollowness around his eyes was gone. He was breathing normally. Pressing her ear against his chest, she smiled brightly at the tickle of silky hair against her cheek, then listened to his heartbeat: smooth and strong and steady. Pulling away the bandage from his pelvis, she was startled to see the tattoo had not faded. His mutation had accepted it as part of his body.
Stroking her fingers over the inked rose with her name emblazoned on the red ribbon, she nearly jumped when Logan’s gravelly voice rasped, “You coppin’ a feel, darlin’?”
Meeting his eyes, she melted inside, smiling widely as Logan smiled weakly back at her.
“How you doin’, sugar?”
“Well,” his voice was still hoarse from the respirator, “you know me: what doesn’t kill me, pisses me off.”
*
It took a full week for Logan to get back to normal, and he and Rogue spent their leisure time talking and walking together.
On his first walk out of the hospital bed, they went into the main room of Med Lab and without thinking of it beforehand, Rogue realized that Deathstryke’s skeleton was still lying draped on the gurney. Logan caught sight of the unmistakable shape of a human under the white lab sheet, and walked straight over to it.
Turning to her, he asked, “Who’s that?” No one had mentioned any deaths while he’d been out of action, and there was no discernibly-fresh death smell in the room. His enhanced sense of smell had been quick to return, and he reveled in using it again.
“That’s the sample of adamantium they brought out of the lake to test. You told me about her, and I remembered.”
“It’s Deathstryke?” His fingers reached for the edge of the sheet, pulling it smoothly onto the floor. Rogue carefully watched Logan’s eyes as he regarded the metal-laden skeleton laid out before him. Darkness and contempt and victory and disgust and understanding sympathy all seemed to flow through the hazel eyes before Rogue broke the hypnotic tension.
“I don’t understand what the big lumps are inside the ribs. Did they do that bad of a job on her? I’ve seen your x-rays and your bones are perfect.”
“Stryker didn’t make those lumps. I did,” he stated flatly, pointing at the misshapen torso. “That’s her heart, lungs, stomach; her intestines probably burst there. That’s where I pumped her full of molten adamantium, because I couldn’t beat her in a throw-down fight. She was wicked; fast, strong, vicious... she damned near took me down permanently.”
“Are you ready for something weird?”
“Are you kidding me? How much weirder does it get?” The raspiness had healed out of his voice.
“Okay,” Rogue breathed, “when they pulled her out of the water, after dragging her across the lake bottom to the Blackbird, there was debris that got picked up along the way. Mike untangled some stuff, then gave it to me. Promise me you won’t freak out.”
“I don’t freak out.”
Pulling the chain from inside her shirt, Rogue slipped it over her head and laid the dog tags out in her open palm. “You told me you threw them away in the lake. They came back tangled up with her. Do you want them back?”
“No.” There was no hesitation in his voice, but no anger or distress, either. “Do you want ‘em? You always seemed to like wearin’ ‘em.”
“If it won’t cause you any pain, then yeah - I wanna wear them. I might draw the line at gettin’ ‘Property of Wolverine’ tattooed across my ass, but I’d be proud to wear your tags.” As soon as she made the tattoo remark, she blushed and grinned.
“Wear the tags. We’ll talk about a ‘property of’ tatt later,” Logan smiled down at her, giving her one of his rare, unmasked expressions, totally open and accepting. Taking the chain from her hand, he gently draped it around her neck again and kissed her softly on the lips, “You’re my girl, so you wear my tags.”
“And if you’ve got my name tattooed above your male part, that means you’re my guy, right?”
“Right. Like it?”
“The tattoo, or the male part?”
“Wench. Help me get her sheeted again. She’s freakin’ me out.”
“The Wolverine does not freak out. And yes, I like both. And yes, you’re my guy.”
*
Sitting in the garden on the evening of Logan’s first day back at teaching, he tossed one arm casually around Rogue’s shoulders as they watched the sunset together. He’d touched her every day, but hadn’t made any sexual advances other than a frequent kiss here and there throughout the day. Logan wasn’t sure why he could touch Rogue when no one else could, but if Hank’s theory was right about them swapping enough DNA and touching a lot, he would make damned sure it didn’t fade away.
As the sunset turned brilliant pink and gold, Logan softly spoke to her,“Hank told me everything you did, about trying to protect me while I was down for the count, even to the point of trashing and setting fire to the chapel, draining him and Kurt, and holding me hostage in the hospital. He said you even had a posse of students bringin’ you food and supplies. Is that right?”
“Yeah. I didn’t trash the chapel on purpose; or maybe I did, it just sorta... happened, wasn’t something I planned to do. Draining Kurt was an absolute accident. Draining Hank was carefully planned, however,” she sat in uneasy silence for a few heartbeats as the fiery sun sank behind the trees, leaving them wrapped in blue dusk.
The darkness let her risk voicing the dreaded question that had been hanging for days, “Did I do the right thing, Logan? Hank showed me legal papers that you’d signed.... but the dream... and I remembered you saying you had lost your death wish... I just...” she trailed off, uncertainty robbing her of coherent thoughts. Rogue fretted internally as Logan sat in silence for several moments, never moving his arm away from hugging her against him.
Finally he broached the quiet interlude, “Things change. That’s the way of nature. When I said I wanted to live, it was right. Then things changed, and I didn’t want to live, and that was right, so I signed the papers. Then things changed again, and I had to fight to live, but I couldn’t. You fought for me. Everything changes. We gotta decide what to do based on where we are, and what’s starin’ us in the face.”
“So...” Rogue started again, but stopped.
Logan seemed to know what she needed. Urging her onto his lap and face to face with him, he held her against his chest and nuzzled his face into her hair, nipping softly at her earlobe. Pulling back, he gazed directly into her dark eyes in the last vestiges of light, and spoke firmly but softly.
“You did exactly right. You did more than I ever would’ve thought you would do, or could do, to protect me. You risked a lot, taking Hank and Kurt down, staging a siege in that room, treating me with what you drained from Hank. You, woman, are fucking amazing.” In a breath, his lips were on hers and he kissed her for all she was worth.
*
The next night found them back on the same bench, watching the glory of another flaming sunset. Logan pulled something out of his pocket, and held it over her hand. She accepted it, and was surprised to see a roll of quarters appear in her open palm.
Rogue pondered a few moments, then surrendered to her curiosity, “Okay... what’s that for?”
“Parking meters. We’re going on vacation, and takin’ one of the sedans, so we’ll need change for parking meters.”
“Where are we going?”
“New Orleans. No way in hell am I going to Bolivia.”
“Bolivia?!?” Rogue asked in surprise, “Why Bolivia?”
“You started the whole ‘Butch and Sundance’ thing. When we watched that movie again in your Pop Culture class, I remember how it ended. They went to Bolivia, and got killed there, so I thought New Orleans might be a little more fun.”
“But you hate heat.”
“That’s why we’re going in January, unless you wanna wait until February and go for Mardi Gras.”
“I can’t argue with that logic. Mardi Gras it is - I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“Count the change - make sure they didn’t stiff me at the bank,” Logan frowned as a beam of sunlight edged into his eyes. He slid even closer to her on the bench, bodies pressed tightly together, as Rogue snuggled under his right arm.
“Rolled change is weighed on digital scales now, saves time. It’s right.”
“Count it any way - indulge me.”
Sighing in resignation, Rogue broke open the paper wrapper and dumped the quarters out into the front of her t-shirt, making a little pouch to hold them. In the center of the shower of coins was a bundle of tissue nestled perfectly inside the stacked quarters.
“What’s this?” She fingered the bundle, noting something hard inside. Picking open the tissue, a ring fell out. Rogue stifled her urge to make a ‘guh’ sound. It was a wedding ring; nothing extravagant or sophisticated, just a plain gold band.
“Think it’ll fit? If you don’t like it, we’ll trade up.”
Rogue saw her hands start shaking. She fumbled the ring and dropped it on the ground!
“I knew you’d make me do this....” Logan muttered, grinned, and slid off the bench onto his knees. He fished the ring out of the grass, turned and reached for her hand. “Marry me?”
“Oh, hell yeah!” Rogue shouted with glee, and leaped onto him, wrapping her legs around his hips and kissing him as he tumbled her gently to the ground. Quarters flew everywhere. The two rolled and tangled and kissed until darkness fell all around them and crickets began ringing in the forest.
Coming to rest on her back with Logan’s warm, hard bulk above her, Rogue asked, “Why do you want to marry me? You’re not the marryin’ kind, sugar.”
“It takes a special kind of woman to set fire to a chapel, drop two powerful mutants with a touch, and lay siege to a hospital; but you did, and in my book, that’s grounds for marryin’.”
“I love you.”
“Love you, too, baby.”
“Sleep in my room tonight?”
“No.”
Rogue looked shocked as she struggled up to her elbows from where they still lay, tangled together. “You still healin’ up? I thought we were ready to get busy again? I know I’m ready.”
“I’m more than ready, but a hell of a lot has happened since that one night, that first night...” Logan’s eyes drifted down a moment, then back to Rogue’s, and he licked his lips before beginning, “I want you. I’ve always wanted you. I always knew someday I’d have you when the time was right. But gettin’ hitched is something special, and we’re not having sex again until the wedding night.”
Rogue pushed him off of her, climbed to her feet, grabbed Logan’s hand and started pulling him toward the mansion, “Get a calendar, ‘cause we’re picking a date right now. I don’t like waiting. Time is too precious, and life is too unpredictable. The honeymoon vacation can wait until Mardi Gras, but the wedding is gonna be tomorrow if I can pull it off. I want sex. I want sex, with you, now, tonight. Logan, I don’t want to wait to have you again.”
Her unabashed and enthusiastic declaration made Logan laugh heartily, and Marie treasured the rare sound. With a wicked grin, Logan offered, “I can go ya one better, darlin’.”
Rogue stopped in her tracks and stared up into Logan’s eyes, “Speak now of this plan, sir.”
“Kurt got a minister’s license a few weeks ago. He can legally marry people now. I filed for a marriage license just in case you said yes, and we’re ready to go. You just gotta decide what you want in the way of a wedding ceremony, a dress, all that...” he gestured distractedly, “... girlie stuff.”
Logan had rarely seen Rogue at a loss for words. She stood gaping, silent, and he could see the stream of ideas and thoughts passing through her eyes before she startled him with her request.
“I want us married tonight, naked, in the woods, with no one but us and Kurt, and one candle burning on a stump somewhere. Nothing religious, just straight from the heart. Pure and primal; can you handle that?”
“Naked? And I think we need at least one witness....”
“Yep. I wanna see that tattoo you got. Besides, I’ve seen you naked. You are edible. We’ll get Storm for a witness.”
“Thanks, baby, you’re a real head-turner, too. But are you sure you don’t want a wedding dress? I thought all women wanted the dress.”
“I don’t. If we get married naked, then I can wake up in my wedding outfit every day with you. So, are we gonna do this? I don’t wanna tell anyone until it’s done, or they’ll all make a fuss. We’ll break the news tomorrow.”
“I’ll go get Kurt. He’ll keep quiet if we ask him. You get Storm, and you’re breaking the news about the naked part to them both.”
At midnight, naked in a forest clearing, Logan married Marie by the flickering light of a single candle. After they kissed, a shyly-naked Kurt and a proudly-naked Storm handed them blankets and left quickly.
Marie didn’t need to wait very long.
* * * * *
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Although this officially ends the story, there will be an epilogue posted later. I think the wedding scene needs to be detailed as a stand-alone chapter, so that’ll get a little closer inspection in the epilogue. Thanks for taking this ride with me.
Blessings,
Wolf
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Logan refuses to freak out (ha!), Rogue has her insecurities eased and gets a gift of cold, hard cash, and Kurt gets naked in the woods.