If there was one thing Xavier had learned over the course of his extensive experience, it was to meet people where they stood. So he adapted his speech to his listeners, adapted his arguments to suit their reasoning, and often got the results he wanted indirectly, by appealing to others’ priorities rather than his own.
Such tactics could have proven dangerous in the hands of, say, Erik Lensherr, but for Xavier, intelligence and empathy went hand in hand—empathy for all people, not just his chosen favorites. To be sure, he still faced ethical and philosophical dilemmas. He still struggled with his own vices, sometimes lost himself in the interminable labyrinth of his own thoughts. But for the most part, he held to his ideals and made the world a better place for it.
The trouble came when he reached that fuzzy gray area, where he was uncertain how far to interfere in others’ lives, unsure where the line between ‘a gentle nudge in the right direction’ and ‘full-out meddling’ was drawn. Thus was the case with Wolverine and Rogue.
The feral mind was something he had yet to fully understand. It was difficult enough to read animals, their thoughts frequently non-verbal, their sensory experience unsuited for the sight-dominant human brain. The mind of a feral mutant shared all of the complications of an animal’s brain—combined with the intelligence of a human.
Charles’ head had already begun to pound in anticipation of being in the same room with two of them. He could feel their approach before he heard the elevator’s familiar ‘ding’ as it opened on his floor.
Would it be wise to take a preemptive migraine pill? Probably. He retrieved two from the pill bottle in his desk drawer and downed them with a drink of water from the etched glass carafe on the edge of his desk.
A knock sounded.
“Do come in,” Xavier said, affecting his richest, most cultured voice. He may have difficulty reading ferals, but he knew one thing for certain: social hierarchies were of the utmost importance to them. They liked—no, needed—to know the chain of command. And Xavier needed to illustrate that he was at the top of that chain, at least within the confines of his Institute. A brief impression of their minds confirmed Xavier’s suspicions: concepts like loyalty and obedience were very important to them. Especially in their relationship to each other.
Xavier retreated from their minds, before he could learn more about that subject than he had any business knowing.
“Have a seat,” he intoned warmly yet authoritatively. “It’s good to have both of you back. I trust the drive home was uneventful?”
“It was fine,” Logan offered blandly as he and Rogue sat.
“Excellent,” Xavier replied, then caught the impression that there was something more Logan wanted to share. He steepled his fingers on his desk. “Was there something else, Logan?”
The man looked surprised for a moment, but recovered quickly. “Uh, yeah, Chuck. Just wanted to let ya know, that thing I called ya about last night, what happened at the gas station . . . I’ll have my incident report written up by tomorrow.”
Charles was surprised, but pleasantly so, that his new recruit seemed to understand the necessity of filing a report. Xavier ran the X-Men with the purpose of efficiency and security, but strove his best to avoid any sort of mindless bureaucracy or needless paperwork. He could sense that Wolverine respected the way he did things. And that the man was striving to make a good impression, to fit in at the Institute. He had a number of reasons for wanting the life Xavier had offered him—not the least of which being his newfound desire to enjoy that life with Rogue.
Rogue, however, was not happy with the current state of affairs at the Institute, and Charles fully expected to be on the receiving end of her temper. She was projecting hurt, resentment, and anger—some of it directed outward, most of it in on herself. As much as he disliked her tendency towards self-punishment, he was oddly comforted that it was still there, that she was still her, despite the turmoil in her mind. Xavier had learned that when she got like this, it was best to give her some outlet, lest she get overzealous in the Danger Room and destroy yet another thousand dollars’ worth of equipment.
He had a feeling Wolverine was going to be the same way. He made a mental note to request some of the DR supplies on back order, then began, “Rogue, I understand that you may be frustrated after your talk with Scott. Now would be an appropriate time to address your concerns.”
She took a deep breath and fisted her hands in her lap. Her face went calm, her eyes vacant—an all too familiar sight for Xavier’s tastes. It was how she braced herself in anticipation of pain, physical or emotional. “I belong on the team, Charles,” she said evenly.
“I agree,” he replied, eager to abate the tension in the room. Between Rogue’s emotional shut-down and Logan’s response to it, he could barely hear himself think. No argument would soothe Rogue’s hurt, but this one would at least appeal to Logan: “But you went through a traumatic experience, and you deserve time to recover. I know you won’t take time for yourself. So, as your superior, I have no qualms forcing you to take it.”
Rogue’s jaw had nearly hit the floor by the time he finished that statement. “You thinkin’ I needed time to recover’s what got me in this damn mess!” she snapped, then covered her mouth. The pain Xavier felt at her words must have shown on his face, because he watched her eyes grow round as saucers. “Oh, Charles, I didn’t mean that,” she said with a sigh that sounded interestingly like a whimper. “It wasn’t your fault. I know that.”
He shook his head. “The accusation is not without merit. I was quite insistent that you take a vacation. And someone was able to discover your location despite the care I took to be discreet. Rest assured, though, that I am taking measures to find out how that information was leaked, and to eliminate the threat. I’m . . . sorry, Rogue.”
Wolverine narrowed his eyes and cut in before she could respond. “Information leaked . . . You sayin’ you got a spy in this place?”
“I very much doubt that,” Xavier replied, bringing a finger to his temple meaningfully. If there were a spy in their midst, he or she would have to be incredibly skilled to evade detection.
“Don’t matter how the intel got leaked,” Logan said. “Important thing is it did. And it could happen again. If Rogue’s still a target, and your place has already been breached once, then who’s to say what might—”
“Ah, but my Institute was not breached,” Xavier interrupted calmly. “That is the critical piece of information, Logan. From it we can deduce that the . . . guilty party purposely waited until Rogue was away from the mansion, isolated, to attack. They lacked either the resources, the manpower, or both, to launch an attack on the Institute. Ergo, Rogue is safest here.” Especially if the Lensherr inside Rogue’s mind really did possess whatever crucial intelligence the real Erik Lensherr had been so eager to protect. It would be only a matter of time until Magneto learned of Rogue’s recovery—Xavier needed to act quickly or he would lose his advantage. Yet he still hadn’t decided how much he could trust these two with information that, in a perfect world, he would have no right to hide from them.
The buck stops here, Xavier thought, wearily pondering the potential consequences of whatever decision he made. Yes, the preemptive migraine pills were definitely warranted.
------------------------
Marie emerged from Xavier’s office astounded, as usual, that the man was so easily able to deflect topics he didn’t want to talk about.
Namely, her suspension from the team and the memories she wanted his help assimilating. Over the course of an hour, he had updated her on the half-dozen ongoing projects she was a part of, briefed Wolverine on an upcoming assignment (while she seethed in envy), discussed the students’ return next week and whether she wanted to resume teaching right away (an emphatic “yes”), and carefully skirted her questions along the lines of what in the name of hell inspired him to promote Kitty Pryde to the senior team rather than calling Warren in from recon.
Needless to say, Marie found that while a lot of talking was done, she still had no answers to her most important concerns. Damn Charles and his uncanny ability to steer a conversation however he wanted it to go. If she didn’t trust him so much, she’d think he used his mutation to do it.
And speaking of their conversation . . . she turned to Logan, unable to work up the nerve to ask him why he was walking her back to her room. Didn’t he have other things to do? Instead she asked, “What’d Charles mean when he said your apartment’s gonna be ready next week?”
Logan glanced at her, his eyes travelling shamelessly down and back up. “God, you look good.”
Marie felt her cheeks warm. This man had a one-track mind. She really should have changed clothes after they . . . uh oh. A thought occurred to her. What if Logan was thinking dirty thoughts all during the meeting? What if he was picturing her naked or something? Charles would know, and he was like a father to her. That was—well, it was just wrong on many levels and she really didn’t want to think about it anymore. “Logan. Apartment.”
He smirked. “I heard ya, darlin’. I asked Chuck for a private apartment somewhere away from everybody else. One of my conditions for signin’ onto the team. He said he had a small guest house on the edge of his property that needed some fixin’ up. Guess it’s almost done.”
“Guess so,” Marie replied flatly, feeling strangely bereft at the idea of him being too far away. Oh, good grief. You’ll prob’ly see him every damn day. Don’t be clingy, she scolded herself.
“But,” he spoke in a low voice, resting a hand on her back and leaning in close—rather needlessly, as the hallway was deserted, “I still think we should get farther away than that when . . . y’know. It’ll just be for a few days every month. We’re not really safe to be around other people when you’re—er, when we’re like that.”
“Uh huh,” Marie said dumbly, a little out of sorts from his closeness. The prospect of isolating herself for the protection of others’ wasn’t particularly terrible—she did that on a regular basis already, because of her skin. But the prospect of being alone with Logan for that time was a bit intimidating. Which was ironic, because if she had to name the one feeling she most associated with Logan, it would be ‘safe.’ But she was worried for herself, that she would do something embarrassing. That she would behave the way she had at the cabin or something. Still, it was better than staying at the mansion, so she did her best to calm her reservations and said, “Alright. That sounds like a good plan, sugar.”
“Mmhmm,” he agreed, leaning into her a little more and blatantly sniffing at her hair. He circled his arm around her waist and pulled her against his side—
“Logan?”
He didn’t respond except to tighten his grip and resume sniffing at her.
“Logan.” She gave him a little shove.
He growled briefly, but moved out of her space.
Marie wasn’t sure whether to be flattered at his attention or annoyed that he expected her to be receptive to his advances all the time—including in the middle of the hallway, for the second time that day. But he seemed to be respecting her wishes, as he shoved his hands in his pockets and continued walking her to her room with a minimum of growling.
----------------------------
She smelled so good and looked so good, and he wanted her. Logan didn’t even know what exactly he wanted—sex and touching her and making her respond to him and looking at her and spending time with her and—just her. He’d wanted things before, but he’d never wanted a person, not like this. Now, he realized, he did. Food. Air. Marie. How could she expect him not to touch her at least a little bit, when she was right there? It was like putting a glass of water in front of a thirsty man and telling him not to drink.
Logan shoved his hands in his pockets and continued walking Marie to her room, realizing that he probably growled at her too much and he should probably feel guilty about that. She wasn’t his plaything, there solely to satisfy and entertain him. She was a person with a life of her own and wants of her own and that was supposed to matter. If she didn’t want him to touch her all the time, well, he could respect that even if he couldn’t for the life of him understand it.
“You’re real territorial for a female,” he mused.
Marie bristled a little. “What’s that s’posed to mean?” she asked, shooting him a sideways glance.
“Nothin’. You’re just . . . protective. Real protective of what’s yours.” It occurred to Logan that he had little room to talk.
She wrinkled her nose. “Huh? Not really.”
He chuckled heartily. “Your room, your car, your privacy, your body . . .”
She opened her mouth to argue, but couldn’t seem to form a rebuttal. She settled for, “Maybe I am. So what?”
“So nothin’, I guess.”
“Fine.”
“Why’d you say ‘fine’ like that?”
She sighed. “Ya don’t like it, that what you’re tryin’ to say? Ya want me to stop bein’ that way?”
“No,” Logan insisted. “That ain’t what I meant. I like it. I mean, you’ll make a good mother.” He looked away, barely able to believe the words that had just come out of his mouth. That was the thing that had been nagging him, he realized, the strange feeling that came over him whenever she got protective. The idea fascinated and terrified him in equal measure, and he just really wasn’t ready to examine it too closely. He definitely wasn’t ready to examine Marie’s response too closely. Her scent changed in a familiar way that he had learned signaled embarrassment. She seemed to get embarrassed a lot around him.
He tried not to think about things like how cute that was and how it made her cheeks turn pink, the same way they turned pink when she was underneath him in her bed making soft, sweet sounds.
Logan suppressed the urge to touch her, growling at himself this time rather than Marie. He wasn’t sure she would know the difference though, so he tried to stop growling altogether.
He mostly succeeded.
-------------------------------
That makes sense, Marie thought as Logan entered her room with her. He left his bag here. I forgot about that.
But Logan didn’t pick up the bag and say goodbye. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all. He nuzzled into her, kissed her cheek briefly, and then went into the bathroom. She heard the shower start up.
“Make yourself at home,” she muttered.
“I heard that,” he called through the door.
“You were meant to!” she replied.
-----------------------------------
Thirty minutes post-shower, Marie had called to have her balloons and flowers donated to the local hospital, set her long-dead laptop to charge, shot a couple of longing glances at the bottle of barrel-proof Tennessee whiskey on her nightstand, and generally pretended that Logan wasn’t sitting on her bed in sweats and a tanktop, his eyes following her every movement.
Finally, she cracked. “Don’t you have . . . stuff to do, sugar?”
She was met with a shrug. “Yeah, I’m gettin’ ready to work on some things. Just wanted to watch you a bit.”
Marie didn’t know what to say to that. “Oh. Um. Okay?”
--------------------------
Forty-five minutes post-shower, Logan had finally pulled his eyes away from Marie and his X-emblazoned laptop from his duffle. He plugged it in next to Marie’s bed before opening it. Then he flattened a pillow against the headboard and stretched his long legs out in front of him, settling in to work.
Marie had been shooting him increasingly pointed glances, but if she wasn’t going to work up the nerve to ask him to leave, he sure as hell wasn’t going to volunteer.
Besides, her bed was very comfortable. Much better than the one in his guest room, as he recalled. He had no intention of sleeping in that bed again.
“I’m gonna go work out,” Marie announced, pulling some clingy black clothing from one of her dresser drawers.
“’Kay, darlin’,” he said with feigned inattention, lazily scrolling through his e-mails, deleting the ones that wouldn’t be worth responding to. He didn’t want to cut all ties with his former clients, but as long as this thing with Xavier was working out, he had no desire to take on any outside jobs. Maybe if all went well, he’d never have to again.
He used to be The Wolverine, mercenary and cage fighter, described by the women in his life as, ‘A big dick and a handsome face, but not much else.’
Now he was The Wolverine, professional superhero, rapidly falling in love with a sweet, shy, inexperienced woman. The Wolverine, following Marie D’Ancanto around like a puppy. The Wolverine, who had a steady job and a nice place to live, who was feeling loyalty for the first time in his miserable existence, towards a man who took him in and gave him a chance he neither asked for nor deserved.
He shook his head. How had his life changed so much in just a couple of weeks? Logan didn’t want to analyze it too closely; it was a change for the better, and that was all that mattered.
“Uh, well, I’m . . . goin’ now,” Marie said as she emerged from the bathroom in a black bodysuit. She had thrown a loose NYPD tee shirt over it in some vain attempt at modesty, but it did little to disguise the gorgeous body underneath. Her hands hovered over her head as she drew her hair into a ponytail and secured it with an elastic.
She was one of those women who pulled off the sporty, effortless look really well. Logan wondered if she knew that about herself.
He also wondered where she got that three-sizes-too-big tee shirt, but pushed the thought away abruptly. Thinking about her past relationships would only serve to piss him off. She really should know better than to wear another man’s shirt in front of him, though. That just felt . . . wrong. Even if his tags were worn over it.
Logan set his laptop off to the side, fighting back an all-too-animalistic urge to stake his claim on her. Wolverine had no business taking control of his mind now. “C’mere, baby,” he said, hoping her closeness would calm him a little.
But as soon as she got within arm’s reach, he grabbed her arm and tugged her onto him until she was straddling his lap quite nicely. He trailed his bare hands all over her clothed body, squeezing her hips and waist under the tee shirt. “Y’don’t hafta go to the gym, Marie,” he teased in a low growl. “I could work you out good and hard.”
Her mouth fell open. “Logan! Oh my gosh . . . that’s not—“
Logan wasted no time rolling her under him and grinding into her lower belly in the way that he knew would make her whimper and submit. Sure enough, she forced her body to relax under his and bared her neck to him, breathing shallowly, on edge as she waited for his next move. It was such a perfect sight, her laid out like that, responding instinctively to his dominant gesture.
“That’s not what, baby?” he asked, then continued before she could respond, “That’s not the kinda workout you had in mind, dressin' like that? Really?” He gripped her conveniently tied hair and kissed her deeply, reluctant to pull away even when he began thinking thoughts that might scare her a little. Finally, when the physical pain grew too intense, he broke the kiss.
“Alpha . . .” she whimpered softly.
He looked down at her, breathing as if he’d just run a marathon. “No fair,” he groaned. “Ya knew I wanted ya to say that.”
A little sly smile curved her lips. He kissed it away, then rolled onto his back, trying once more to catch his breath. “Go have your workout, baby, ‘fore ya gimme a heart attack.”
She pouted at him and traipsed to the door. He felt his heart skip a beat as he caught a glimpse of her in that action, Rogue, his sweet, playful, uninhibited mate. She was still there. She was still his.
She turned at the door. “It’s not from an ex-boyfriend,” she muttered, gesturing to the shirt.
Logan simply grunted, retrieving his laptop. “Good.”
“I wouldn’t do somethin’ like that, t-to upset you on purpose, or mmm-make you jealous . . .” she was looking down. “It . . . it made me sad . . . when you thought that about me.”
He ran a hand over his face, smelling a change in her scent that he didn’t like. “I didn’t think that, baby. Not really. Just for a fleeting second, and I wish you didn’t have to see that.”
Marie turned to face the door, playing with the handle but not opening it. “You wanted to . . . um . . . punish me,” she whispered.
“No,” he said, growing uncomfortable. “No.”
“I mean, I know ya wouldn’t let yourself do that. But—but a part of you . . . wanted to.”
“I won’t, Marie. I won’t hurt you. Never.” He knew that. He knew that was true. It had to be true.
She turned towards him again. “I know. I believe you. It’s just . . . I have a part of me that’s like that, too. That's sort of hard to control. That wants to . . . please you. And it hurts, when you’re disappointed in me or upset at me. It really hurts, a lot. I just want ya to know that. I’m not gonna disobey you or make you mad on purpose.” She nodded, as if affirming that she had said everything the way she wanted to say it.
“Don’t worry about upsettin' me, Marie. Don’t even worry for one second, got it? I’m glad you told me, darlin’. I’m glad you’re talkin’ to me about things.”
She bit her lip. “Yeah. Um, well okay, I’m gonna . . .”
Logan nodded. “Okay, baby. Have a good workout.”
“Thanks. The spare key’s on the dresser, if ya wouldn’t mind lockin’ up when—ah, if—ya leave.”
He nodded again, wishing she would hurry up and go before he gave into the urge to follow her. When was the last time they were apart from each other?
Never, he realized. Never for more than a few minutes, really, since the day he claimed her in the bathroom of that little cabin in Vermont. Logan forced his attention to his computer screen, refusing to let himself look up as she left him and closed the door behind her. He didn’t move a muscle as her footsteps retreated down the hall.
Love you, baby, he thought, wondering if he should have told her that before she left.
He pushed the thought from his mind, resolutely focusing on the report he needed to type up. The sooner he finished, the sooner he could walk downstairs to the business center and print it.
And really, the gym was on the way to the business center, if he took a sort of scenic route. Yes, he could definitely pass the gym and check in on her. That wouldn’t be too clingy or controlling, right?
Right, the Wolverine agreed.
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Chapter End Notes:
Whew. This story has been trying to write itself all out of order for some reason. The bright side of that is the next two chapters are almost complete, so there shouldn't be much wait between posts this time =D. Lab reports and research papers have my 'writing voice' turning a little technical. Hopefully that didn't bleed over into this!