When she'd gotten home, Logan was missing, a note on the kitchen table told her that he'd gone for food. They weren't going back to the house for their meals tonight, Logan food meant steak or some large meat product. Smiling she took over a corner of the table and spread out the files she'd brought back.
She was still there when the lights suddenly switched on above her head, flooding the dim page with light. Logan was stood with a bag filled with something that smelled wonderful. "You'll ruin your eyesight readin' in the dark, just because you can doesn't mean you should." Blinking and wiping her eyes she looked out of the windows, the dark had fallen outside but to her she'd been sat in dim light. Her train of thought stopped by Logan's intrusion and the scent of food making her stomach rumble. "Hungry?"
"Yeah, starvin'." Laughing at her as her eyes locked onto the bag he was bringing over to her. Depositing it next to her files, his gaze scanning the stuff she'd just been looking at.
Her own hands were devling inside the bag pulling out a huge sandwich, hot pastrami falling out of the nearly foot long sub. Logan was reaching toward the files when she slapped the food into his hand and pulled his head back up to look at him. "Food, now, hungry woman makes for snappy sex later." Smiling he took the food and dropped the paper from his hand. Her own hands plunging back into the bag for the chicken she could smell at the bottom. Plucking out the container of fried chicken her smile broke over the table making Logan chuckle as her stomach echoed the growl she'd unknowingly released. Slapping him playfully she sat across from him with the bucket of chicken in her lap.
Being able to relax and just 'be' made up for the tensions they'd been feeling over the last couple of days. Logan had relaxed a little when he'd realised that Xavier wasn't going to move on them yet, they had time to plan and time to get things sorted out. Xavier had other problems to deal with that had nothing to do with them.
They spent the evening eating, there wasn't much to say between them, the pages of the files slowly creeping over the surface of the table as the food dwindled down. The files contents were digested along with the last of the chicken, Logan pouring over the X-Men mission reports; an occassional snort coming from his mouth as he read something that amused him. Marie on the other hand was reading about Emma Frost and her 'organisation'; the words on the paper made her out to be a lacky of Magneto. Yet the evidence was pretty thin on the ground if you looked from a balanced standpoint, there was even a leaflet inside the file. A coloured booklet a lot like the ones Xaiver gave to the families who left their kids here on purpose and paid for the priviledge. Looking it over she could see the defensive positions on the photograph and it suddenly came clear why they had this information. Her hands flew to the file Logan was looking at, pulling through the pages until she found what she was looking for. A recon report done by Ororo and Kurt, Ororo had gone as a prospective mother looking for a place for her child and Kurt had done some 'searching' of his own with his particular skills. Their findings weren't anything special, a school, a few dormitories of kids (both mutant and human), a list of teachers and the school boards license showing their list of subjects covered.
Kurt found nothing unusual in his search, just a school and children playing happily, learning in an environment where everyone was seen as a valid human being mutant or no. There was a postscript added by Xaiver, reading that they should keep an eye on the school, just in case they had anyone infiltrating their ranks. Also for cases of child abuse or bullying of mutant children, they were to make regular contact and keep Xaiver updated about when Miss Emma Frost actually came back to the school grounds and if she did while they were there they should do they're best to follow her and find out about their 'other' operations. A file number followed and her hands were searching the pile she'd brought out with her hoping that it was here. Not finding it on the table she opened up every file that was there in the hope that it had been pushed into one by mistake. She was through her third fiel when she caught the number on the edge of the small grey file. Brandishing it up to the light she whooped "YEAH! Got it!"
Logan was watching her over the papers he was reading, her scramble through the files to find the thing she needed to get hold of. A questioning eyebrow was raised in her direction and she gave him a snake smile as she spoke, "Emma Frost, personal file." Dropping back down into her seat she couldn't defend the rest of the chicken and read at the same time, Logan took advantage ans snagged the now cold chicken from her. "HEY! That was mine!" She gave him an incredulous look of hurt and he just mumbled through a mouth full of stolen chicken that he'd make up for it later. She added, "You'd better bub!" Making him wink at her as he devoured the rest of the bucket and the pages in front of him.
Pulling her attention to the file she held in her hands she began reading the 'closed' file on Emma Frost.
An hour later in front of the fire laid in Logan's arms she was mulling over what she'd read, the rest of the files spread out on the floor. Emma's history was something that read like a trashy novel, a good family, rich, classic schooling until her powers had shown themselves where she'd been taken under the wing of Xavier and Magneto when they were working together on the school. Her personality profile was there too, a psyche evalution and her mutant classification. Picking up the next piece of her life to read it, her fingers noticed the change of texture. Giving the paper a rub she picked up a different piece from a different file, the paper felt different. Dropping it she took another piece from a different file and did the same. Again, different feel from the one with Emma's details on it.
Something was niggling her mind and she began sifting through the pages on the floor, pulling aside every piece that felt different. Logan watched her work, soon she had a different file in her hand, a file that had nothing to do with the archive but everything to do with Xaiver. She'd felt the paper before, it was high quality, not the usual stuff they did the reports on, this was from Xaivers office. She'd typed up letters on this expensive stuff, lifting the thin sheet up to the light bulb she could even see the watermark of Xaviers family on the sheets. Dropping her hand she looked over at Logan, his face was calm but his gaze looked confused as to why she'd just ripped through twelve files and made a mess of them all.
"Someone's tryin' to tell me somethin' Logan," she lifted the thin expensive pages in her hand, at least twenty if her mind was working correctly. "Not everyone here is against us by the looks of things Logan, seems like we're not the only ones tryin' to bring him down a peg or two."
Logan reached over and took the pages from her grasp and began to read them as she went through the files she'd rummaged through. There was nothing missing from their actual content, it was as if someone had put them in there on purpose. Even altering the codex at the file front to hide the new page inside, Logan was quiet, still as he read even his breathing had slowed. Moving her eyes toward his still form she could feel the air thickening as she did it. The scent of blood met her nose as his claws slid out slowly, his jaw tightened, eyes coming off the page as they stared past her and out of the window. He just pushed the pages at her, his breath even but the need for violence palpable in every breath he took.
Taking the pages from him she read the first few lines, her eyes scanning the print hoping not to find what was there in black and white was true.
'Subject Wolverine: Found following last implanted orders, intergration into new operation seems easily achievable, reward program already running, long term plans for Wolverine breeding program looking promising with new mutant female (see additional file). Contacts within military still confused to actual whereabouts of codename Wolverine, continuing programming through stimulus denial and reward for 'correct' mission behaviours as set by original parameter testing.'
It was one paragraph on one page, there were twenty here in her hand, shaking her eyes went down the page. Ororo's name stopped her roving eye next, it listed her fear of enclosed spaces, the mistreatment of her at the hands of an Egyptian thief master. Her role as second in command was also here, that her psychological weakness made her unsuitable for leadership. Plus her 'Goddess Complex' made her difficult to control at times, it listed times and places where she'd gone beyond her abilities to save people, where she'd killed those she thought deserved it. At least twelve different file numbers were listed, one she recognised, the team had been sent out to aid a small country after a devastating earthquake. As she remembered Ororo hadn't gone with them that time, she'd been off somewhere else. Now she knew why.
Looking at the bottom of the page she saw the file name printed there, it was the yearly report from last year. All of the dirt, all of the things Xavier didn't want anyone else to see or know about was here in her hand. Hidden in the other files she'd taken away with her, and the face of the secretary flew back to her. She'd done it, the vinegar faced woman she'd thought about gutting had given her everything she'd needed to start work. Logan was still staring out into space, blades still shining brightly under the light. Looking at his face she sat on his lap, wrapping herself around him. Seeing him finally look at her with a shark eyed gaze, dead, black and unforgiving.
"Hey, we knew he was using you, we just didn't know how much he knew about you before you came here. Now we do."
He just nodded, a blankness had caught him and she was worried about what he'd do to Xavier. Logan had been kept tabs on, watched, monitored; he knew that but it looked like Xaiver had known about him from before then. Before they'd grabbed him and turned his mind and body inside out, Xavier could have helped him, saved him from the pain and torment of it all. Then he realised, how could he have given him the names of the people he'd killed if he hadn't known already? He felt stupid, a jackass, a wolf being used like a trained dog who finally remembered that they weren't meant to wear a collar. Growling he made to get up but Marie stopped him, her smaller hands resting on his chest. Using her weight she was pushing him down, the paper in her hand resting on his body.
"NO! We use this!" She punched his chest with her palm, making the paper rustle, "We leak it, send it out to those who don't trust the old bastard, we hurt him where he can't solve it. We destroy his trustworthy image, tomorrow we destroy the team, you work on Jean, I'll do the Boy Scout." She could see she was reaching him but he wouldn't be satisfied before he had a set of blades in Xaiver's head.
"Okay, but no killin'." She pouted and stuck her lip out at him, the plump pink of it making his groin twitch as she shifted over him. "NO Marie, maimin' sure but no killin'. Not yet." Sitting down on Logan's hardening lap she made sure he stuck to his promise about making up for stealing her chicken.
They'd read the rest of the file in the morning, when they'd had chance to burn off some anger in a positive way.
Xaviers ivy clad walls were about to come tumbling down from beneath and they'd be the ones removing the keystones.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
We spend some time with Marie and Logan as they go through the information collected from the school archives.