Logan couldn’t help but think about the many things that had changed during the last 20 years, since Rogue had left everything behind. Many of the people she had known had moved on with their own lives, and Logan was finding it hard to believe that so much had happened.
Erick Lehnsherr had not only regained his abilities, but at a strength that scared even Xavier. Everyone had been afraid that with Magneto at full capacity again, he would become an even bigger threat. Instead, Xavier asked him to take over the school and to become mentor to the Xmen while he was traveling through space with his Shi’ar Princess, Lilandra. Logan though he was nuts, and was ready to kill the man at the first sign of danger towards the students, but, for ten long years, Erick had proven just how capable and devoted to Xavier’s dream he really was.
~~~”Logan, Erick will be taking my place, now,” Xavier explained as he and Lilandra filled his suitcases. “He is a good man, and he will take care of everyone. We haven’t seen eye to eye on everything, but…”
“You haven’t seen eye to eye on anything except keeping these kids alive,” Logan spat back. He hadn’t been happy to receive the news after returning from another outlash of mutants against humans. When he had arrived at the home in question, a human man and woman were both dead, claw marks running through torsos. There had been children in the house, three to be exact. They hadn’t belonged to the people living there, and they had been mutants. He could tell by the difference in their scents.
Investigating the house, he found numerous torture devices. It seemed that the couple had gotten off on torturing young mutants who were too naive and afraid to understand what kind of trap they had fallen into.
Logan went to the basement, and felt as if he was going to be sick. The large room was the scene of a massacre. They used the bedrooms upstairs to rape and torture these children, before bringing them to the basement to kill them in the most painful way they could imagine. It looked as if they had been doing this for year.
He went back to the stairs, no pity in his heart for the death of the pedophile couple. He had known their killer, but he silently gave thanks for Sabertooth;s slow execution while setting the house on fire. He would be damned if these children were going to be exploited by bastard parents and the media.
“He will do fine, Logan. Besides, you will be here to keep an eye on things and to make sure the students will be taught peace,” Xavier said softly, smiling at him as if he was nothing but a child. Logan could say no more. Once Charles had his mind set, there was no turning back.~~~
The thing stranger than working with Magneto was working with Pyro. For three years, they skirted around the fact that they had both loved the same woman, and had watched her walk away without so much of a fight. Pyro hadn’t even known that Logan knew what had happened until one day while they were supposed to be training in the Danger Room…
~~~ “You nearly set my fucking hair on fire!” Logan yelled as Pyro threw another fire ball just past him. The younger man wasn’t listening, instead trying to stop the copy of a mutant sneaking up on him. “End program!”
Pyro finally gave him his undivided attention as the program ended and the mutant disappeared. “What is this about?”
What aggravated Logan most was the way he sounded, the way he talked as if he was speaking to a very slow child. He unleashed his claws as he stalked closer to the younger man. “You got a problem with me, Firefly?”
“I’m not the one with the problem, Skunk Man,” Pyro replied, forming two fire balls, one in each hand. There had always been tension between the two since Pyro had awakened back at the mansion. He had a feeling Logan knew. “This is about Rogue, isn’t it?”
“What the fuck else would it be about?” Logan began to circle him.
Pyro let his fireballs diminish to nothing. Of course she had told him. He had probably known since he had been back. “I love her, you know.”
Logan sheathed his claws, seeing the pain in the young man’s eyes. He knew that pain deeply. He had felt it every day since she had walked out on him. “I do, too. Come on, let’s get a drink.”
The ride to the bar had been the longest seven minutes of Logan’s remembered life. He didn’t know what to say. Not too many men had to work so closely with their woman’s ex. Especially not one who was still very much in love with her.
For the first hour, the pair of loved struck men did nothing but drink. Both were handsomely rugged and worn, so it was no surprise to see a couple of women trying to pick them up. Neither of them took the bait though, and soon, the women lost interest.
“You want to talk about it?” Logan asked softly. “Get something off your chest?”
“Fuck, Logan. Why did she have to take the cure? Why did she have to go through all of this?” Pyro had been holding in all of his feelings for so long, he was having trouble expressing them. “Things should have been different. She deserved better than the life she got dealt.”
“I know, kid. As far as mutations go, she got pretty fucked, didn’t she?” Logan chuckled a little. “But it’s what happens. We all go through some pretty fucked up shit in our time. She’s just going through a lot.”
“I shouldn’t have let her go so easily,” Pyro sighed as he tipped another shot glass back, allowing the fire of the tequila to burn his throat lovingly. “I should have fought Bobby for her when she first got there. Hell, I should have fought you for her.”
“Be careful, kid. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” After an hour of back to back tequila shots, Pyro was well on his way to being drunk, and Logan was starting to question his method of getting the man to open up.
“Fuck you. I should have beaten the shit out of him a long time ago. Hell, I should have walked up to you that first day and told you to back off, but no… I had to be the secret. I had to be completely unselfish.” He downed another shot.
“Listen, kid, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You’re drunk. If you would have stepped up to me, I would have knocked you right back on your ass.” Logan gave him a knowing look. “You were a kid. So was she. I know. I also didn’t try anything with her then, did I? Hell, I didn’t even think that something was possible with her. I’ll admit, I never thought about her as if she was my daughter or sister or that bullshit, and I sure as hell noticed the new curves when I got back, but I wasn’t interested. At least, I didn’t think I was.”
“What are you saying, Fucker?” If it wasn’t for the fact that the man was clearly intoxicated beyond coherent thinking, Logan would have skewered him right there.
“I’m saying that you could have had her then. Hell, you should have. If I had known what the Icicle was really like, you probably would have claimed her right after the prick’s funeral, but no one told me anything, and I thought she was happy with him. I almost killed the bastard after she left to take the cure. For a long time, I thought it was for him.” Logan took another shot himself, smashing the glass on the table as he brought it down. Although a few patrons were startled by the loud noise, no one seemed to care that he had just broken one of there glasses. Logan noticed the questioning look on Pyro’s face and shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve been coming to this place for as long as I have lived at the mansion. They know me. They know I’m bound to do something stupid on each visit. They also know that I clean up after myself and pay for my mistakes, so don’t get no ideas.”
“Marie and I could be married right now. Maybe we could have had a couple of kids who are too fucked in the head to realize how shitty this world is.” Logan watched a small grin spread across the man’s face. He needed to disillusion this kid, and fast, before he got any ideas that could get him killed.
“Naw, that’s not what I was saying. You would have been able to have some fun, but, in the end, she would have been mine. You could have given her a real, normal relationship before I finally woke up.”
“How do you know she would have chosen you?”
“Because it’s fate. One day, she’s going to come home, and I’ll be waiting. We’ll pick up where we left off.”~~~
That conversation had been 12 years ago, and Logan and Pyro had become good friends and partners since then.
Now he sat in his office, going over the stats from the last training session, figuring in everyone’s weaknesses. He couldn’t concentrate, though. Something was wrong; he could feel it in his metal laced bones.
The phone sitting on the corner of his desk began to ring, and he answered it once before it could ring again.
“This is Logan,” he said quickly, giving the call his undivided attention. “Can I help you?”
“Hey, Wolvie,” Husk said brightly from the other end. She had come to the mansion with encouragement from her brother, Cannonball, shortly after her mutation manifested. She could change her entire shape by shedding her skin. Of course, she did have a problem when she changed back into her normal self. When she shed her skin, she would shed her clothes, also, leaving her naked. For a long time, Logan had to chase away some of the boys and a couple of the men of the school whenever she accidentally shed. Because of this, he had seen her naked enough times that it just didn’t faze him, anymore. Of course, when her brother had found out, he had practically insisted on a wedding. Logan barely got out of that one by the skin of his teeth when Husk declared that if Cannonball didn’t stop, she would marry Gambit. “I’ve got someone on the line for you. She wouldn’t give her name, but she says it’s important.”
“Let her through.” He waited for the familiar click of the transfer, knowing who it was even before he heard her voice. No one called him and didn’t give a name. Not on the main line, anyway. “Rogue?”
“How did you know it was me, Shug?” She asked softly, trying to sound casual.
“I just do, Darlin.”
“I need you to come get me, again, Logan. Something very bad has happened.” The casual tone was gone. She was in trouble. “Scott’s gone. He disappeared a week ago, and now something’s going on with my abilities.”
“Where are you?”
She was back in New York, and she was in better condition then the last time he had found her like this. She wasn’t huddled in a corner, talking to herself, and she was fully aware of her surroundings.
She was still the same woman she had been 20 years ago. The same white streaks lay against brown hair. He could have said that she aged well, but he knew better than that. There wasn’t a single wrinkle or scar on her face.
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