Of Keys and Consequences (Based on ‘Bluebeard’)
Marie was happy, that was all that concerned him, the wedding had gone well, everyone was behaving themselves and for once Logan hadn’t had to growl at anyone. He was feeling pretty mellow by the time the dancing came around, his eyes rested on the happy couple, he’d first seen the Cajun after his first trip home. Noticed the way his dark eyed gaze would follow Marie, but he’d never follow her physically.
That didn’t happen until she broke up with Bobby, he’d been back to get some more intel on is own past from the Prof. He’d been greeted as usual by a smiling Marie but this time instead of the Ice-Cube it had been the Cajun who was hanging back, giving her space to see him. She’d been in such a happy mood, such a change to her usual careful self that he’d not noticed that her skin was touching his until she’d mentioned it.
“Logan, Ah can touch!” The words had floored him for a moment his eyes not believing her words until she pulled his head down and kissed him, not a simple peck on the cheek either but a real heartfelt kiss. People had stood a little shocked while Logan quickly made sure his hands had something to do other than grip her to him and make everyone sure about the rumours he’d been dealing with since he’d brought her to the school.
When she’d finally let him go she’d beamed at him and told him that Remy (the Cajun) had a ring that dampened powers, that kind of shut them down while you wore it. And he’d given it to *her*, the look that had passed between the Cajun and him had been one of utter gratitude until she’d told him she was with him….she was *with* the Cajun. He’d schooled his face quickly and congratulated them both and fingered the thing on her hand, the thinnish band enough to hide some circuitry in of that he was sure. Marie told him it had been checked out by everyone and there was no downside to the deal, she could take it off and her skin was active again. So she could be like everyone else, have a life, have kids and Logan made sure not to let his disappointment show when he knew it wasn’t going to be him she shared her life with.
But he was happy for her, he’d threatened the Cajun, drawn the claws on him later when they’d been alone, letting him know in no uncertain terms how much he cared for Marie. To the guys credit he hadn’t balked from him or run, he’d stood his ground and told him that he had nothing but the best for her, he loved her and wanted whatever she did. He was with her for the long term and if that meant that he had to curtail his own wants then he’d do it, he’d do anything for her, all she had to do was ask.
An as much as it pained him to know he’d kept to his word, the guy was a stand up fella did what was asked of him, went out to fight alongside Marie in missions, took injuries trying to keep her safe. It seemed like his promise was over, she didn’t need him any longer, there was someone else who loved her just as much as he did. Watching her turn on the dance floor of the huge ballroom in the school he couldn’t help but wish them the best of luck, while hoping his own pain would fade before they had their first kid.
He was about to leave them to it when Marie grabbed him, her pale hands still delicate and small, still looking fragile with the two bands on her left hand. “Logan? You’re not going just yet are you?” He looked down into her eyes and for a moment he let her see what was going through his mind, let his eyes tell her how he felt. He saw her own eyes widen and she almost stopped moving but he pulled her along into the steps of the waltz that was playing. Dropping his head to her neck he smiled into her skin, taking a good hit from her scent and reading it, her confusion and her upset. Whispering into her ear as they danced round the room, “What could I have said darlin’? You deserve better than an old dog like me, you deserve a man who’ll treat ya right, not drag ya round following the past like a ghost.” He smelled her tears and quickly wiped them away with his thumb, resting the pad on her cheek as he cradled her face committing it to memory.
She looked so fragile, her eyes flicking between the man that saved her and the man who gave her herself back, gave her the option of living a normal life. She stopped moving and just flung herself around him, not caring what people thought, her whisper over his heart nestling into his skin. “Ah still need you Logan, Ah love you, always will but you should have told me. Don’t leave me out your heart Logan.” She raised her head to look at him, he was stood rock still, his emotions playing out over his eyes, still open to her to look at and she knew that he’d promise her that.
“Promise me Logan,” the rest of the world faded away and she was there stood with him in her wedding dress and in his mind she was marrying him, being with him but he knew it wasn’t the truth. He’d take whatever he could get though and he just nodded, his voice giving her the answer she needed to hear while it broke his own heart in two.
“I promise Marie, I’ll be here if you need me.”
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It was a year until he heard from her again and when he did he almost ignored it but her voice had sounded so needy he had to go, the promise he’d made wrapped itself around him and pulled him to her. Inside he was hoping that she’d want something more than a visit from him but even he wouldn’t have expected what he found.
The house was huge, massive in a way that the mansion in New Salem was, the gates were open and the grounds looked a little untended but apart from that it looked fine. He didn’t sense anything strange until he hit the front door, the hinges were smashed inward, the doors were hanging on by a thread and the rest of the house looked just as bad. Something had happened here, something bad and his nose picked up on the scent of cordite and gunpowder, recent too. His blades sang out and he ran after the trace of Marie, filling his nose with her scent and reading the fear in it, she’d been terrified, running for her life and inside Wolverine was straining at the leash.
He found her.
The sight of her made him double take and check his senses, the bag of bones huddled under the sofa couldn’t be Marie, the phone she’d used to call him still in her grip as she slept. There were marks on her skin, scars, healing wounds and when he made a growl into the air her eyes shot open and her first reaction was one of fear, until she recognised the man stood in front of her. “Logan? You came?” Her face looked drawn, thin, haunted even and her hair was the biggest shock for him, pieces were missing and her scalp had scarred where chunks had been ripped out. Tears filled and rolled down her face bumping over the scars and making them ripple to his eyes, she was broken, harmed, destroyed, marred and when he caught up with the Cajun he was as good as dead.
He took her to the cabin he had in New York State, away from the faces she knew, away from everyone, no one would know where she was until he was ready to tell them. Until he got out of her what had happened and where the Cajun was.
It took two weeks for her to be comfortable around him, comfortable enough to sit with him for long periods of time and then she had to have her back to a wall and her eyes on the door. He cooked for her, cleaned for her, took care of everything she needed, leaving her space to recover. To regain her trust that had been broken by the Cajun, he didn’t use his name in the cabin, or even talk about him, all he asked her was what had happened in the house, what had been done to her.
When she finally broached it, when the wall came down he’d just asked her to get him something from the small closet but she’d stumbled and shook in front of the door. Her will obviously trying to do as he’d asked her but her fear stopping her from doing it, her bare fingers gripping the handle and the key below it, trying with all she had but failing. He’d walked over to her and she’d just started talking while holding the doorknob, her voice shuddering with the emotion, with the fear.
Remy had been in the underground, he helped to move mutants from one area to another, helped them find a place to live, to work, to prosper. He’d shown her the rest of it, the whole house was funded by the work, people paid for introductions to workers who had certain talents. And she found the work satisfying to an extent; she could help people without risking herself. Remy praised her, made her feel the most wanted woman in the world, gave her things she’d only ever dreamt about. She had everything she’d ever wanted and that’s when the first worm had eaten through the apple.
Remy came home one night injured tired and snappy, she’d tried to help him but he’d shouted at her, screamed at her to leave him alone. Confused and hurt she’d done as he’d asked, left him alone. The next day he’d shown her why he was so upset, he hadn’t meant to shout at her, just that something had gone wrong and the people he’d been trying to help were killed. He felt responsible, he felt that he could have done better and she’d suggested that they get some help from Xaiver, her fingers traced the line under her right orbit. Her first scar, the first time he hit her, the first time he’d touched her in anger, three months into the bliss that had been all pervasive, drowning out her senses until now.
He’d rounded on her punching and kicking her across the room, telling her that if she wasn’t happy here then she should go back to them with her tail between her legs, to do things ‘their’ way. He’d rescued thousands while Xavier talked about it and sent out his lap-dogs to rescue one or two, his way was better, his way *worked*! He’d dragged her to their room and locked her in, telling her that if she wanted she could just walk out on him. Leave, take herself back to her old life because that ring was his and he’d cut her finger off to get it back if he had to.
As she spoke her fingers played with the band, but it didn’t move like it had before and Logan pulled her round to look at it. The ring was almost under her skin, small filaments wound out of it into the surrounding tissue, she couldn’t take it off if she tried. Her voice was the thing he remembered late into the night when she’d finally stopped crying and rocking herself to sleep. Always repeating, “Ah tried Logan…Ah really did…but it just wouldn’t come off…come off…”
Cold settled where rage had sat, this would take planning and that meant the others had to know. He’d sort her first, see her on her feet, then he’d deal with him, slowly.
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The next day she’d been eager almost to spill the words from her mouth, the things that had been rattling round her mind were finally releasing themselves as if asking her to open the door in the cabin had opened the one in her head.
“He showed me things, videotape of missions you went on, the deaths at your hands, all of you.” Logan didn’t interrupt he let her get it off her chest, let it flow out of her mind and into the world around them. Poison flowing into their world, colouring the air with deceit.
“Ah had to watch them every day with the rest of the staff, the people he had working for him, telling them who to watch out for. He concentrated on you, made me hate you, made me distrust everything you’d ever told me, even made me doubt my own mind.” Marie turned toward the light that was coming in, letting it gold her skin, seeing the hairs on the backs of her arms raise as the warmth went through her.
“He told me Ah was alone. That if Ah went back you’d hurt me, that you’d saved me only because Xavier had other ‘uses’ for me later. That a mutant with my powers would be very valuable, that’s why he gave me the ring he said, so Ah could be free to choose. That all he wanted for me was to get away from there, he came undercover, used his own thief contacts to gain entrance to Xaivers. To ‘help’ me get away from you all, to ‘free’ me from slavery.” When she met his gaze her eyes were hollow; the scar tissue on her soul was much harder to erase than the memory of it happening.
“Ah *believed* him Logan, he convinced me that you’d been trying to hurt me, made me distrust you, made me send things back to those that sent them. That the best way was a total cut-off from everyone and everything, that he hadn’t meant to be so harsh to me. That he loved me, he just didn’t want to lose me to the brainwashing again.”
Her laughter was brittle and sent shards of cool arctic ice into his heart, her head shaking as the tears fell and her voice sang out it’s pain. “He told me the only way he resisted it was because of his secondary power, one that no one knew about, not even Xavier picked it up.” Her tired eyes met his and she let the last piece of the puzzle drop for him, “He’s an empath, he can control how others react to him, how we *feel* Logan and Ah didn’t see it because Ah was already being used, being abused, being ‘controlled’.”
He wanted to kill something, he needed to shred something, anything, he needed to release the anger that was burning through him and he didn’t want to hurt Marie. He just smashed through the cabin door and ran silently for a while and then released a howl that carried all the way back to where she was still sitting, her thin whisper was a wraith in the air. “Yeah that’s just what Ah felt too, that’s why Ah called you, Ah didn’t want to live anymore.” She retreated into her shell for a while, sat there through dusk and into the night, the door still off it’s hinges but she didn’t move, falling asleep where she sat, waiting for Logan to come home.
He came back the next morning, tired, bloody, and calmer than he’d been in weeks, several animals had been ‘harvested’ and the meat would get them through the winter. They were packed in myrtle along the track; he needed to check on Marie first before he went back out to get them. He found her still sitting in the chair he’d left her in yesterday, hands wrapped around a mug of strong coffee, when she raised her head to look at him she offered it to him with the hint of a smile. The first he’d seen on her face since he’d gotten to her and brought her away.
“Marie?” His question was filled with things that weren’t spoken out loud, it was filled with more than just her name, it was filled with everything he’d felt for her, *still* felt for her, even now.
So when she moved out of the chair and actually touched him first he knew she was coming back to him, Marie was coming home and this time he was sure that she knew how much he loved her. There’d be no mistake this time, she was home and nothing would ever change that.
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Wrapped up in his embrace in front of the fire, food digesting in their stomachs Logan broached the question he’d been dreading her answer to.
“What happened at the house, what made you call me?” Marie shifted a little deeper into his embrace and concentrated on the fire, her eyes watching the flickering flames before beginning her tale, her fable that led her to her true prince.
“When he first showed me the tapes I refused to believe them, but he’d told me he’d gotten them from the recording equipment at the school. That the missions you went on had been recorded separately, that they were different from everyone else’s, that you were a killer, a bounty hunter for Xavier.” She played with the shirt on his arm, picking up the fabric between her bare fingers and twisting it.
“He still treated me well, still loved me. We made love as many times as we could in a day for the first month, then he had to get back to work. He told me my skin wasn’t an issue for him, even made me take the damn ring off so he could show me how much he loved me. He was careful Logan, so very careful,” tears were dropping into his shirt from her face but she wasn’t noticing them, her words were still clear of emotion.
“After he shut me in our room, Ah tried to take it off but it wouldn’t come off. When he let me out later he held his hand out for it, for the ring and I couldn’t give him it. He just smiled and said ‘Looks like we’re together then, meant to be.’ He apologised again, told me that he’d been under so much pressure to keep himself and me safe from everyone else at the mansion. That it had been difficult for him to keep you from harming him or me, that you were insanely jealous about us being together, about us being ‘happy’ and as soon as he said it Ah could remember it. Your face being so upset at the wedding, the way you looked at us both with barely disguised hatred. He took my memories and changed them, warped them and he felt good doing it. All he wanted was me out of the way.”
Logan cuddled her to him, making sure she felt his solid bulk supporting her as she spoke, knowing she needed him there, needed to feel *him*.
“They must have been drugging my food because the last I remember was sitting at the table with everyone and them telling me Ah wasn’t to go in the briefing room anymore. Ah just did as Ah was told, didn’t go back just spent my days wandering round the grounds, doing what Ah thought was ‘real’.” Her hand went up to her scalp and felt the bald spots, her fingers tracing the holes where the hair had been ripped out at the roots. Logan’s hand grasped hers and pulled it away from their tracing of her scars, “Carol did those, she moved in a few months afterward, she ‘liked’ to play with me. Pity her ‘playing’ gave me scars and my mind wasn’t in any state to fight her, swamped with guilt from Remy, confused and alone Ah thought Ah deserved whatever punishment she handed out.”
Marie rested her head back against Logan’s chest and felt his heartbeat thumping through his metal lined ribs. Just knowing he was there made it all seem a dream, like it had happened to someone else. Her hand in Logan’s own made her look at the ring that was fused to her skin and she dared to give the thought space in the room.
“Could you take the ring off? Could you cut it off without taking my finger with it?” Logan shifted her head to one side while he raised her hand and looked at the filaments that were attached to her skin. After a few minutes a large sigh went through his chest and she turned herself to see his answer. His eyes were filled with concern and love for her but he gave her the answer she needed.
“Yeah, I could, but the skin wouldn’t ever come back Marie, you’d have a deep scar there, maybe lose the use of the finger and the nerve into the hand.” She nodded and let her fingers trace over his own tanned skin and reached out to his face, the metal shining in the firelight.
“When this is over, Ah want you to cut it out of me, Ah never want to wear a ring there again.” His heart dropped through the floor at her words and she caught the look of despair that went through his gaze, she kept his eye and added, “Unless it’s yours.”
In those words he’d been given everything, the final piece of her, the whole of her, that she trusted him enough with what was left of her to offer herself to him without price. But this came first, she wanted closure first and that meant catching the Cajun.
“We’ll get him Marie, I promise.” Empty for now she let Logan touch her, hold her, cherish her how she should have been in the first place. When she eventually let him love her completely she’d pushed the memory of dark black eyes away to the past. Logan loved her and she loved him, she always had done, pity they’d both had to suffer before they got what they deserved.
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Winter raised its head with a vengeance that year, in the dark months Logan filed for papers, through several contacts they came back unsigned but Logan got the divorce anyway. The photographs of Marie’s abuse and a letter telling of her fear of the man she’d married was enough to convince a judge to dissolve the marriage, freeing her from the bond that had been tied around her neck.
She’d gained weight, her skin glowed with health again, they walked every single day whether the wind blew or the snow fell. She knew the price of her freedom and she wasn’t going to sell it short, over time she regained her confidence. Logan training her in the wild, to see, to hear, to think, sharpening her instincts until they were honed to an edge. She could still touch, the ring was there still and her fingers played with the metal that was being absorbed by her skin slowly. Even joking about having her own metal lined finger an how it was a pity it wasn’t the middle one of the hand. She smiled more and Logan was happy to see her grow into herself again, to be the woman she'd promised to be when he’d first found her.
She’d been helping to prepare dinner when she dropped out the last of it, the why she’d called and what she’d seen before she’d reached out a hand to what she’d thought was death. His hand held the small chopping knife over the venison on the board and she asked him to put the knife down first, so whatever was coming wasn’t good.
“They must’ve forgotten to drug me one day because Ah just went into the house, followed someone toward the briefing room. Ah was a ghost by then Logan, just a shape drifting by, someone to take out your rage on. A thing that was ‘owned’.” Logan kept his temper but she could see the anger rising through him and Marie moved herself to be in his embrace. Making him safe, because if she were in his grip he wouldn’t draw his claws.
“Anyway Ah got to the doors and just opened them, walked into the dark space and found a seat under the window. There was a good view from there, you could see the orchard and it was so pretty that day, thing is there’s large electric drapes too and Ah tucked myself behind one. Ah didn’t think they’d mind, Ah wasn’t talking, Ah wouldn’t be in there long, Ah just wanted a different view of the outside. Ah suppose Ah still wanted to know if Ah was wanted, but my mind was so fuzzy.”
Marie snuggled into the embrace Logan had on her, turning herself so she was talking into his chest. Feeling his hands lock over her back and shoulders, cherishing her every movement, making her smile and the words to gain a deeper emotion.
“Anyway Ah musta fallen asleep in the sunshine because when the noise woke me up Ah felt much clearer in the head. There were voices all around me and the drapes were closed thankfully; they were planning something a raid or something because they were talking about weaponry. About how much to take and what to use where, Ah heard Remy and Carol come in, they talked quickly about doing a deal with Magneto. About them joining his organisation, The Brotherhood and how much it’d give everyone, how they’d benefit as a group. It was Carol who mentioned me, and it was then that Ah realised what had happened to me, what Ah did to *myself*. He told her that I was part of the deal, but that Magneto didn’t know Ah’d been neutered, that my powers had been destroyed by the ring.”
She brought her hand up between them and fingered the metal band that was now flush with her skin, eyes sparking as she touched the surface of it. “Touch wasn’t all it was cracked up to be with him, but with you….” She let the sentence drift as her eyes met Logan’s and his bare fingers roamed over her face, touching every part of it. Telling her without words that he’d have touched her ring or no. Smiling she hugged him tight to her before continuing.
“Ah listened to everything, the real jobs they did, what Ah helped them do to others. They sell mutants to labs Logan; they take the lonely lost and afraid and sell them to people who want ‘workers’ or ‘volunteers’. Every single one of the people Ah thought Ah was helping was probably dead somewhere because of me; all they cared about was the amount of money they could get. When they left the room Ah waited until Ah needed to pee to move, peeking out of the curtain there was no one left in the room but there was a whole lot in there that had been hidden before.
Computers, a small console table with maps on it, the whole thing laid out in front of me. Ah just grabbed a folder and used the window, Ah thought Ah could lay up, read what Ah could and maybe tell someone, anyone. But Ah couldn’t tell you, or the Professor because Ah didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t anymore.” Logan stroked her back to comfort her, sensing her stress and nerves at remembering that time in her life. Lost, alone and afraid of the people around her, an ex-mutant with mental problems and injuries. No one would believe her if she got away and told someone, they’d just hand her back to her ‘husband’ and he knew how long she’d have lasted if she had been.
“So how did you do it? What happened at the house?” Marie lifted her head and looked Logan in the eye as she answered him, her voice strong and her eyes filled with fire.
“Ah called Magneto first.”
That she’d put herself in so much risk had been an indicator of her state of mind, that she’d put herself in the hands of the one man that had tried to kill her. Logan’s mouth held the question that was on his mind and in his gaze because she answered it before he aired it.
“When he found out that Ah was useless and that Remy was expecting to strip mine his organisation for everything he had, he came callin’ with every hand he had available. They weren’t all at home when they came, Ah ran and hid, Magneto obviously thought Ah’d already been killed for my betrayal because he never even looked for me. He tore the place apart looking for Remy though, probably still is somewhere, Erik’s not a man to forgive easily.”
“So why call me?”
It took a while for her eyes to meet his but when they did her pain was singing out on her skin, “You have to remember Logan Ah was still confused, still hurtin’, still clearing that crap out of my mind. Ah was alone an Ah didn’t want to live anymore, Ah wanted you to kill me.” When silence met her words she reached out her hand to his face and felt the trembles beneath his skin, her breath touching his lips as his hands tightened on her back.
“You always said you’d take care of me and it was the one thing Ah still *knew* in my heart, even if you hated me you’d do this for me, you’d stop me hurting, stop me feeling guilty for all the deaths Ah’d helped in. That’s why Ah called you two days later.”
The words rested deep in his heart before he answered her, making sure he understood what she’d said, what she’d bared to him. The soul of her, the last piece of pain where she’d called out to him to die and he’d taken her into life instead, he’d saved her again, this time from herself.
“You waited two days? In the house alone?”
Marie nodded her head slowly; “The Brotherhood took everything they could get their hands on, every scrap of paper and equipment. Remy’s organisation’ll be busy fighting for its life if Ah know Erik, selling mutants for money is something he’d never do. Kill em for his own ends sure, but sell em to humans? Remy’s a dead man walking if Mystique hasn’t already killed him.”
Logan grunted and looked surprised at Marie, his voice sounding light in the warm kitchen, “Never thought I’d be happy to hear about that blue bitch and bucket head.”
Her smile warmed him through as she held onto him, her body relaxed and her eyes clear, the last piece revealed and her self-loathing given a name and face. It’d take time to heal but given time they’d do it, he’d given her life instead of the death she’d called for and it was a sin not to use what had been given to her.
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“You ready?”
Her eyes sparked out their annoyance, her voice strained and her patience wearing thin, “For the *thousandth* time Logan… YES!”
“Okay, but it’ll hurt.”
“Tell me something Ah don’t know! Just get it over with!”
The claw lowered a tearing sensation along her hand and finger, the local anaesthetic taking away most of the sensation but she still kept her eyes on the operation. Small filament wires were pulled from her muscle and skin, the palm was the worst. It was like pins and needles in reverse, itching from the inside.
“Fuck Logan, get this thing out of me!” He hurried his fingers along, gloved up he removed the last threads of her ‘collar’, the last memory of her imprisonment.
When it was out it was at least a metre long, the fine filaments must have been all the way up her arm but she never felt them. Jean was there and was helping to staunch the wound, trying to stop the bleeding that was flowing from the mangled finger. Everyone was gloved up just in case her skin came back on immediately after the operation but Logan still saw the doubt run across her face. There was only one way to find out if she was able to touch, they’d had a year of touching, a year of healing together. Tearing off his glove he touched the cheek he’d been kissing for a year, everyone’s breath was held, Marie included. The tickle was there, slight, not uncomfortable and it shut off almost immediately, the blood stemmed itself and her finger re-knitted itself a new covering.
Jean watched in surprise as Logan was still standing and not even showing any signs of harm. “How on earth?”
The technician who’d taken the thing turned himself round, the large round glasses doing nothing but accentuate his already amber gaze his cultured voice running over their ears. “Looking at this thing I’d say it taps directly into the secondary nervous system, uses the already higher spec system we have to control the skins responses. You should be able to control the flow of information without any trouble now you know how to do it. Like controlling your breath when your underwater, the body learns quickly when it’s put under stress.”
Logan hadn’t moved his gaze from Marie, her skin had healed up, some of the older scars were gone, her scalp was back to normal but the one scar under her eye was still there and he reached out to touch her again. She moved back an inch and she caught his disappointment, “Logan, no. Ah want that one. A reminder, not what Ah lost but what Ah found.” She waited for his assent to show and when it had she allowed his hand to find her skin again, leaving Jean to watch as they touched each other. This time without a safety net under them or a collar around their throats, it was enough to make her leave medbay, taking Hank with her. This was their time and they deserved every moment they could get.
As they left Marie found Logan's eye, the promise of death for Remy was still in both their gazes but there were more important things to do first like love. He'd get his but for now they'd do what they needed to do adn that was touch and love. It was all they'd ever needed in the first place from each other.
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Story Notes:
This is a challenge fic inspired by WRBeta on the 'fairytale' challenge. I picked 'Bluebeard' for mine and the references are 'the lock and door' and the mistreatment of Marie. Hope you enjoy reading it.
Chapter End Notes:
Well hope you enjoyed that and please let me know if you did, thanks Jo.