Rogue sat cross-legged on the bed beside Logan; they had a system going, he would read a page and then pass it to her. It was wroking well until about an hour earlier when Logan had begun to stack the finished pages to his left, away from her. Marie had to wonder what was so bad that the information contained in them needed to be kept away from her.
It wasn’t like his life had been pretty up to this point in the file and he hadn’t balked when he handed her the pages regarding his family. In fact he hadn’t even flinched when he gave her the page detailing his mutation’s manifestation and killing the man that turned out to be his real father.
So far, they’d made it through the transcripts dealing with the American Civil, all the way up to Vietnam. It was easy to see that Logan had willingly taken part in the interviews along with his half brother, Victor.
It was also evident that Logan was protective of his older sibling and even voiced his concerns about Victor’s mental state; Logan explain that they were both exhibiting signs of mental distress after having gone through so many traumatic years.
Logan complained of nightmares ranging from instances in all the wars that he awoke from in a rage more often than not. Victor, however, seemed to have assimilated his traumas into an animalistic bloodlust that even Logan couldn’t cage.
“Fuck,” Logan snarled, pushing his legs off the bed and slamming the file down in his place. He began pacing the room like a caged animal. If he didn’t calm down he would be popping his claws and destroying something he didn’t want to have to explain or pay for; placing the page she was reading on the finished stack she approached him, palms up.
“Logan,” Marie murmured, moving to stand in front of him. The look in his eyes was devastating, haunted, when he met her gaze. Taking his nearest hand in her gloved ones she gently stroked it hoping to sooth him.
After a few minutes Logan closed his eyes and took a couple of calming, deep breaths. “That’s right, Sugah, just relax. Ya need to calm down or yer gonna break somethin’ if ya don’t and I know ya don’t wanna have to explain to the motel manager in the mornin’ why ya turned his furniture into kindling wood.”
“Marie,” he sighed as he twisted his hand to grasp her hands bringing them to his lips he kissed the silk covered knuckles of each before opening his eyes to meet her worried gaze.
“What, Sugah,” she gently extracted her gloved hands from his, cupping his cheek and caressing the side of his neck in a gentling fashion. “Nothin’ is gonna make me run from ya; you and me we’re in this together.”
She watched as he took a deep breath and nodded, his voice was gruff with emotion when he finally spoke. “I volunteered,” he swallowed hard before turning away from her, “I practically fucking begged them to do this to me.” The distinctive snikt-sound of his claws being released was loud in the room.
Marie figured he would have had to volunteer the empty bottle of scotch was evidence enough if you thought about it.
“I know,” she murmured, moving to press her forehead into his shirt covered back and run a gloved hand down his arm to his hand. Almost as if the stroke of her fingers triggered it the claws slid back into their flesh and blood sheath. “I sorta figured it had to be yer choice; ya can’t be sedated can ya, Sugah. The only times I have ever seen ya out cold was when ya took heavy damage to the head or got it in yer brain to lay hands on me.”
“Do you know why I did it,” he growled, his hand flexing into a fist again.
“No,” she shook her head. “It don’t really matter, the why of it, not to me.”
“So, you don’t want to know?”
“Of course I do,” she snapped. “It just don’t make no difference in how I see ya understand? You kept those pages from me, so you must not want to share that part, and I can wait until yer ready to tell me.”
Nodding Logan stepped away from her toward the bed to gather the pages he’d finished reading; straightening the stack he turned back to her offering them to her.
“Long story short,” he muttered. “Stryker recruited us after the incident in Vietnam and we became part of a mutant task force. It evidently didn’t take me long to figure out it was a government sanctioned shit fest; according to the files I quit, left the team and my brother behind on Lagos. I drifted around for a bit, but they never had eyes off of me. I settled in the Canadian Rockies and worked with a logging crew…I met a local school teacher that turned out to not be so local. She was working with Stryker, some deal regarding her sister; they staged her murder at the hands of Victor and then sat back waiting for me to try and take him out.”
Marie reached out and took the papers and the set them aside as she listened to the emotionless way he related the facts of the experimentation done on him. “After I failed Stryker offered me everything I would need to take
Victor down and I was gagging for it when they did the procedure. Some doctor, Dr. Carol Frost, in the files said I refused to delay the start of the program so they could explain what would be done.”
“Is that what happened to yer memory,” she asked as she cleared all the papers from the bed and gave him a gentle push towards it.
“No,” Logan answered letting her nudge him onto the bed. Laying down he settled on the far side of the bed and turned on his side away from her. “I haven’t gotten to that point in the file yet, but according to the surviving medical and military staff at the facility I became enraged and escaped upon hearing Stryker ordering the doctors to erase my memories. Stryker must have finally succeeded at some point, but I haven’t read that far yet.”
Marie turned out the light and climbed into the bed behind him. Hesitating only slightly she wrapped her arm around his waist, “You can read the rest tomorrow after the funeral, but we both need some rest about now.”
“Yeah,” Logan agreed.
They lay quietly for what seemed like hours, but were really only a few tension filled minutes, before Logan’s voice disturbed the quiet, “Tomorrow, while you’re at the funeral, I’m going to search the Professor’s office.”
“For what,” she asked confused. “You think he kept something else from you?”
“I think,” he started and then hesitated. “I am not positive, but I-I think he might have information that could help you.”
Marie jerked slightly as his words sank in, “Me, but why wouldn’t the Professor tell me if he could help with mah mutation?”
Logan stiffened beneath her gloved hand before grounding out, “Why would he hide my past from me? Why would he cage Jean’s true mutation instead of helping her to control her mind? Instead he locked her mutation up inside her head along with her more feral side and turned her into a shadow of her real self.”
“Yer right,” Maria acknowledged. “It was kind of a naïve question, huh?”
“No, Darlin’,” he denied, twining his fingers with hers over his stomach. “It’s trusting. Try and get some sleep now.”
Marie closed her eyes and shifted a little closer to Logan’s back, she needed his warmth because she was suddenly very cold. They lay there both pretending to sleep and both knowing that it was impossible. How had things gone so crazy in just a few days time?
As the light of the rising sun cut a fiery path across the motel bed Marie was sure of one thing, Logan was the only person she could trust. Making up her mind she decided that today she would be Rogue; untouched by those that had hurt her in the past, only Logan had not lied to her or broken her trust and only Logan would know the real her.
Without a word they packed up Logan’s past and left the motel on the road back to the Mansion.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Logan and Rogue get a more thorough look at the file on his past.