The jet lowered, through the fog cover, at the rear entrance of the underground facility, near a concealed helipad. Their entry strategy was a distraction, the chopper full of dead bodies would imminently be crash landing at the front of the base, hopefully distracting everyone enough to allow them unhindered access to the control room.
The entire team disembarked and headed for their entry points, as they got into position a rustle in the woods behind them alerted Logan, and Rogue, to an approaching person. Everyone else however, jumped when Sabretooth suddenly stepped out behind them. Logan briefed Sabretooth on their plan handing him a digital map which was preloaded with the base blueprints, then he handed him the photo Rogue had given him earlier. "This is the asshole I'm after, alive and unharmed if you happen to run into him first."
"Why this guy, what's so special about him?" Sabretooth asked, as he did as Logan had done earlier and memorized the guys features before handing the photo back. Logan didn't reply, instead turning to the sound of the approaching helicopter. The helicopter hit the ground hard, about fifty yards from the main entrance, exploding into a fireball as, almost immediately, alarms began to sound through the base.
"That's our cue," Cyclops ordered, gesturing for everyone to advance.
Wolverine and Sabretooth went first, followed closely by Rogue, Colossus, and Cyclops. As soon as they reached the control room, encountering minimal resistance along the way, Phoenix and Shadowcat took position and began to override the internal systems. The base was quickly locked down, all external communications severed, and signals blocked.
"Have at it ladies and gents," Phoenix said, as the rest of the team began to disburse.
They were not taking prisoners on this shut down, the entire facility was being purged. The only reason they were doing it in person, rather than by bombing the place was, one, they wanted the research that was stored here, and two, they would cover their tracks with an internal explosion. It would be interesting to see what cover story the government cooked up, as to what was going on at the base, when it went epically public.
An hour later the base was in shambles, everyone was dead, and the main team was focusing on removing data storage and rigging the entire base to blow sky high. The only area of concern was the ferals, and Rogue. They had descended into Stryker's personal barracks, an area that contained his own room, office, and living space, and that of his private security, despite a lot of noise, including gunshots among the screams and roars, nothing further had been seen or heard from that area, and the three had yet to return.
"What do you reckon, do we go in?" Cyclops asked, looking to Colossus, equally concerned as amused.
"Maybe we could get Shadowcat to phase in?" Colossus suggested.
"Or you could stop being such pussies," Sabretooth answered, sticking his head through the doorway where half the door was left, hanging lopsidedly from broken hinges. "Seriously, man up, it's not pretty in here," he added, as he disappeared again.
"Where's Wolveri..." Scott broke off, as he stepped through the door into the carnage beyond. The rest of base, that had been business, soldiers killed quickly and efficiently by the two men as they swept through the base as quickly as they could. In here though, this was clearly personal, time had been taken to make sure these men died slowly, painfully. Some had limbs almost fully severed but for main veins and arteries so they didn't bleed out quickly. Others had been disembowelled, clearly while they were still alive.
Stryker's office held the most gruesome sight Scott had ever seen. The guy was naked, long parallel cuts running every inch over his body, every finger and toe had been cut off, and every joint dislocated, his eyes had been gouged out of his skull and his tongue ripped out.
"So... what eventually killed him...?" Colossus asked, partly curious but mostly disturbed.
"Old fucker had a heart attack before I could finish," Sabretooth muttered, sounding disappointed as he walked further down the hallway.
Following along behind him they saw Rogue standing in a doorway, Sabretooth just winked at her before walking into the room. "Holy shit Jimmy, I knew you had the sadistic ability somewhere in there but what in the actual fuck did this guy do to bring it out?" Sabretooth announced, letting out an appreciative whistle.
"I get the feeling I don’t want to see what's in that room," Cyclops commented to Rogue.
"You don't," she replied, "But we both know you're going to look anyway."
With a grimace he stepped into the room, staring open mouthed at the sight before him.
A man, or what was left of him, was hanging by his wrists from the ceiling, his arms awkwardly fluid giving the illusion he was being held up purely by muscle and skin. Toes, and bits of fingers, were discarded around the room, his dick was split from tip to root and his testicles were literally hanging from his body. There were strategically placed puncture wounds along his arms and legs, meant to cause pain but minimal blood loss, and Wolverine had begun to flay him alive.
Swallowing the rising bile in his throat Cyclops croaked out, "What the hell is this!?"
"This, or what's left of him," Wolverine replied, carefully peeling away another swath of skin, "Is Sergeant Conners."
"Oh, I see," Scott replied, as the name fired a memory. "Was this really necessary though?" he asked, as the dying man moaned in pain as another length of skin was peeled away.
"Well, to be honest, yeah, though at the same time I'm just killing time because I haven't decided how I'm going to kill him yet," Wolverine replied, a malicious spark in his eyes, "Let's see... so far I've broken every bone I can in his body, dislocated all major joints... What do you think, should I strangle him with his own guts or rip his heart out through his chest?" he casually asked Sabretooth, as if they were discussing what was for dinner.
"Well that all depends, what did he do?" Sabretooth asked again, with a touch of concern over just how sadistic Wolverine had gotten over this guy. He'd known him for a long time and this wasn't normal.
"Tell him," Wolverine commented, pulling the guys head up by his hair, the movement overstretching and tearing muscles in his arms. "Tell him what you did to my little girl, you were so proud of it before, gloating and bragging. Tell him how you cut her, and beat her, and burned her. Tell him how you raped her, every way that you could come up with in that sick little head of yours, most of which weren't even suitable for a grown woman let alone a six-year-old girl. Tell him how you left her lying in a pool of her own blood while you went for a smoke before coming back to do it all again. For every day she lay in that hospital, recovering from injuries so fucking horrific they should have killed her I would love to make you suffer even just an hour... fortunately for you, I don't have eight hours."
The room was silent as Wolverine slowly stalked around his prey, adding additional pain where he noticed spots he'd missed before, being careful to avoid damaging anything that might end the man's suffering too soon. He was starting to get obviously lightheaded from the pain and blood loss though, so however Logan was planning on ending this it needed to be soon.
"Disembowel him, strangle him with his guts, right before he passes out rip his heart out, leave his eyes, so he can watch," Sabretooth drawled, vicious fury in his tone; Stryker might have been one evil fucker but at least his proclivities for violence hadn't tended to children in that way.
"I like the way you think," Wolverine replied, stopping in front of the hanging man, the terror of imminent death had faded from his eyes around the time he had finished dislocating his arms, after he'd cut his fingers off, knuckle by knuckle, for daring to lay them on his daughter. The guy was now starting to look relieved that this would all soon be over, soon, but not quite.
Making a knick in the skin of his abdomen Wolverine shoved in two fingers, slowly tearing the skin open, very slowly, so the pain didn't spike enough for the guy to lose consciousness. Next, he fished through the hole he'd made, puncturing the membrane that stopped his guts from spilling all over the floor. Slowly he began to extract his intestines, dragging them through the small hole like a thick, slimy rope. There was a scuffling sound at the door of the room before Wolverine heard someone losing the contents of their stomach in the other room, this guy had already done that, and pissed himself, and shit himself.
When he had a decent length section of intestine he twisted it into a noose, before wrapping it around the guys neck, slowly twisting, tighter and tighter, until he began to gasp for what air he could get into his one still function lung, the other had collapsed when one of his broken ribs punctured it. Just as his eyes began to roll as he began to lose consciousness, Wolverine released the noose just a bit, slapping him to bring him back around with a condescending, "Not yet asshole," thrown in for good measure.
The guy began to beg then, not for the first time since this little torture session started. He had to assume what the guy was saying, his speech hadn't been all that clear since he'd cut his tongue out, which was after he'd knocked out all his teeth.
"I'll see you in hell one day, to pick back up where we've left off, 'kay?" Wolverine grinned darkly, before punching his hand into the guys chest. A wet sucking sound accompanied the removal of his hand, wrapped tightly around a lump of bloody pulsating tissue. He watched the guys eyes follow his hand as he realised what his body hadn't yet figured out - he was dead. He began to scream, probably much like how Ava had screamed when he'd been raping her, which only served to infuriate Wolverine all over again. He shoved the organ into the guys mouth, choking him as he twisted the guts noose tight again, the race was on to see what would kill him first, lack of oxygen, or lack of blood.
When the body finally stopped shaking and twitching, as the residual energy leached out, Wolverine stepped back. It was done. He hadn't been able to draw it out long enough, though at the same time he knew, even if he'd been able to torture the guy every day for the rest of his life it wouldn't have made up for what he had done. Letting out his frustration he began hacking at the corpse, reducing the body to a pile of minced flesh and splintered bone in mere minutes until he finally knelt, panting from exertion, in front of the remains.
He felt Rogue move up behind him, crouching down she wrapped her arms around him as she rested her forehead on his shoulder. "We have to go now," she said softly, a few moments later.
With a mute nod he stood, suddenly the realisation that Rogue had been there, had seen what he had done, hit him, what the hell would she think of what he had done, of him. He hesitated, not wanting to risk seeing fear or revulsion in her eyes at how low he allowed himself sink into the pit of darkness he tried so desperately to hide. Like always though, she just seemed to know, and she tugged him around to face her. It took her bumping his chin up for him to face her, before he would meet her eyes.
"I understand Logan. I'm not going to say some of that didn't squick me out just a little but at least I didn't lose my lunch-" she commented with a grin, nodding out the door in the direction Cyclops had disappeared- "I understand why you did it, why you needed to do it, I don't think less of you because of that, I love you, all of you, the part of you that tucks our kids into bed at night and reads them bedtime stories, and the part that slays their monsters."
Logan sighed in utter relief when he heard spoken what he could see reflected in her eyes, without a word he pulled her toward him, wrapping her in his arms as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, neither noticing that his exposed skin was pressed against hers as they held each other.
"I hate to interrupt this adorable display but we really do need to get out of here, your team wants to blow this place," Sabretooth interrupted them a short time later, they could hear Scott in the background confirming everyone else was out and they would be there shortly.
Pulling away from Rogue, Logan gave her a quick peck on the lips, before guiding her out of the room away from the carnage.
--
As they approached the jet Logan noted Sabretooth was still following them. "So, what are you doing from here?" Logan stopped to ask him.
"Honestly, I'm a little concerned about getting away from the blast range in time, any chance you guys can give me a lift?" Sabretooth replied.
"Where to?" Logan answered, as Scott muttered a 'no' under his breath as he stalked away.
"Got nowhere in particular to go so, anywhere is good," Sabretooth replied, with a shrug and a fangy grin as he fell into step beside Logan.
"No," Scott repeated firmly, as they tried to board the jet.
"Scooter, you can't blow this joint until he's out of range, and I am not waiting that long, so he's coming with us,” Logan replied, shoving him out of the way.
"Fine, we'll drop him off at the nearest town," Scott snapped.
"No, he's coming back to the mansion with us," Rogue said, from where she had taken a seat wearily.
"And why the hell would we do that?" Scott demanded, "Unless he's going back in that cell until we send him off to jail, I vote no!"
"Well if it's a democratic vote you want," Rogue replied turning to Logan, "You remember that information I asked you to wait to look at until we got back?" she asked, continuing at his nod, "You're going to need to talk to him once you've looked at it."
Logan considered her carefully before saying, "Well it looks like you're so far outvoted two to one, One-Eye."
Scott turned to Jean and Ororo, who glanced warily at Sabretooth before turning to Rogue.
~"Give me a reason here Rogue,"~ Jean asked her telepathically as she considered her answer.
~"He's Logan's family, they're both more than a hundred years old, there are a lot of blanks that I think he's ready to help Logan fill in,"~ she thought back. The surprised looks on both Jean and Ororo's faces, told her Jean had been sharing their conversation.
Both women nodded, and replied to Scott that they voted he returned to the mansion with them. "What!?" Scott exploded, "Surely I can't be the only one who thinks this is a really bad idea!?" he said, turning to the younger team members.
Colossus shrugged. "All I know is that despite me being told he's a bad guy, he did just help us out, twice in the last two days, plus, Logan's okay with it, so if Logan's going to a give him a shot, I will reserve judgement for now. I say he comes." All the other younger team members agreed with that reasoning, leaving Scott the only dissenting voice on the plane.
Scott gave up with his objections when he saw he was so massively out voted. "Don't blame me when this all goes to hell," he mumbled, as he stalked to the front of the jet to take his place in the pilot's seat.
With a chuckle Sabretooth took a seat behind Rogue, who was across the narrow aisle from Logan. "Not much legroom on this airline," he groused, buckling his flight harness as the engines began to fire. The jet lifted into the air minutes later, once it was a decent way up, and a short distance away, the remote detonated explosives were triggered. The resulting explosion still rocked the jet as it sped away.
As they flew Sabretooth quickly got bored, and what better thing to do when he was bored than piss off Logan, right? "Still afraid of flying I see," he commented, leaning forward to hang around the side of Rogue's seat, eyeing their joined hands.
"If we were meant to fly-"
"We'd grow wings, heard it before," Sabretooth interrupted, rolling his eyes, "So how exactly did he win you over sweet cheeks, and are all the pretty girls around here so easy?"
"Oh, he went all out, dinner, flowers, pretty ring, and his kids were just the sweetest, calling me mommy and coming to me for cuddles, I mean really how could I say no to that?" Rogue replied cheekily, she knew what Sabretooth was trying to do but she wasn't going to let him fuck this up, not yet at least.
"Really, flowers and everything? He always was a bit of a pansy, let me guess, cheesy-ass red roses?" Sabretooth chuckled in response.
"Rose's, yes, red, no. It was white and purple, really pretty," she answered.
"Aww, love at first sight and innocence, cute, has he tested out your innocence yet?" he asked, winking suggestively.
As Rogue giggled, Logan glared at him. "Shut your yap asshole before I change my mind and we drop you off right here, without landing."
"I'll take that as a 'no', don't worry, he's not so grouchy once he's gotten laid," Sabretooth assured Rogue, who burst out laughing. She would have fallen out of her seat if she hadn't been strapped in, the look on Logan's face made it all the funnier.
Once Rogue had composed herself, she turned back to Sabretooth. "What did you mean when you said 'love at first sight and innocence'?" she asked.
"Ah, the flowers, back in the day, a long, long time ago, flowers had meanings, you gave certain flowers to certain people to send them a message, for roses, the purple means love at first sight, the white is for innocence and purity, pure love, cheesy as fuck but it made winning chicks over easy as hell," Sabretooth admitted with a grin.
"Huh, I didn't know that... did you?" Rogue asked Logan directly.
Logan shrugged. "I just saw them and thought they suited you, maybe I did and that's why I thought that."
"Hm," Rogue turned in her seat, so she was leaning around the opposite side to that which Logan was sitting. "Psst, if I wanted to tell a handsome man I wanted to screw, what flowers would I use?" she whispered to Sabretooth; she knew Logan could hear but hey, maybe he would take the hint.
With a chuckle Sabretooth leaned close and whispered back, "Orange roses, though given you're not hitched yet lime blossom would work too."
"Stop corrupting my fiancée," murmured Logan, as he tugged Rogue back into her seat.
"Can you really blame me Logan, I've gotta be the last fucking virgin in the school," Rogue smartly replied, pouting at him.
"First off, that's an oxymoron darling, you can't be a virgin if you're fucking, second, you're not," he stated.
"Not what, grammar nazi?" Rogue asked.
"The only virgin," he replied.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot you could tell that, you go around sniffing at the other girls, hm?" Rogue teased.
"Not intentionally," Logan answered with a smirk. They teased each other for a while longer until the jet touched down in the hanger.
As the team disembarked Scott stopped Logan, pointing directly at Sabretooth. "You, are personally responsible for him and everything he does while he's here, keep an eye on him."
"Kiss my ass Summers, if he fucks up, I'll throw him out myself but his actions are all on him, he's a big boy he can handle that," Logan replied, before sidestepping him and walking out, Rogue smiled sweetly as she did the same. Sabretooth followed, making a lewd comment to Kitty confirming 'big' as he left, noting the death glare he got from the tall Russian standing behind her, seemed that one was spoken for... maybe.
"Just look at your shit and talk to him so he can leave," Scott shouted after him.
After showering in the locker rooms and changing into school issue sweats, the small group made their way to bed. Logan noted Rogue's scent shift slightly toward nervous as they walked down the hallway, heading to the elevator, spiking as Logan paused at the communications room to grab the file. "Don't worry darlin, I'm not ready to look at it yet, sleep first," he said, handing the file to her.
Sabretooth followed them, more because he didn't know where else to go than any other reason. When they hit the final floor and disembarked the elevator he wondered if that was the wrong move, it seemed Logan, Rogue, and two children where the only occupants of this entire floor. Logan nodded for him to follow, pushing open the door of their suite before informing him he could have the couch, as he threw a couple of blankets and a pillow at him. He and Rogue immediately retreated to their own room, leaving him to himself for the rest of the wee hours of the morning.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Strong warning for gore, like seriously, if you are squeamish DO NOT READ, and trigger warning for recap on revelations from Chapter 14. Basically, someone finds out what happens when you harm someone who belongs to the Wolverine…