Chapter Text
You’re smoking a cigarette on your porch when the snowfall happens. It would be normal, you think, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s dead in the middle of July. A group of nanas, elbow-deep in the community garden soil, glance up to the sky and begin muttering prayers amongst themselves.
You’ve lived in this safe house for a while now, up in the mid-west of the Appalachian mountains, surrounded by thickets of pine and opposite a bubbling creek. You grew up somewhere near here and the locals welcomed you back with open arms and a plateful of hot food when the humans started the culling— when the X-men fell apart.
It has plenty of benefits. The smell of lavender, for one, and your cat, Kevin, loves chasing the pigeons, even if he’s not the most successful hunter. The locally sourced produce means you can avoid the poisoned food they’re distributing in supermarkets.
But, most importantly, the humans can’t find you out here. You’re lucky the gossip of your… genetics, so to speak, doesn’t leave Sunday morning church.
Things have been different, lately. The trees are shedding down to dust, people are disappearing at an exponential rate, and there was a time when you’d be on the front lines helping them. You’re on the edge of your seat waiting for the call — a learned habit — but it’s never coming. Charles is dead. Logan is dead. The X-men are dead.
The snow is warm when it lands on your skin. It feels like rot, and your solitude suddenly feels lonelier and more daunting than ever.
You reach to take a sip of your steaming coffee when you hear movement. A zipping strobe light crosses your vision and you flinch against the intrusion, but you’re not afraid. You’ve surely survived worse.
Stryker worse.
A comical and confused looking figure pops out from an orange portal, scratching the crown of his head over the red and black mask on his face. You sip your coffee as you observe him nonchalantly.
He notices you and approaches with a dainty point of his finger.
“Um, excuse me, ma’am.”
“Well, well well,” you suck on your cigarette with a frown. “Look what the cat dragged in. Got a new suit, Red?”
“What, aren’t you happy to see lil’ old me?”
“You’re on my property,” you say matter-of-factually. You had a shotgun stowed away inside for emergencies, but frankly, you never had to use it. You were enough of a weapon yourself. Consider it insurance, if the corn syrup they’re poisoning mutants with ever finally makes its way to you.
You glance sidelong at the old ladies in their aprons, clutching one another with stern gazes in your direction. The deal was that you didn’t bring trouble their way — but it looks like trouble found you. You narrow your eyes and silently hope that this doesn’t turn messy, as it so usually does where he’s concerned.
He sighs heavily and continues approaching regardless. You analyse his stature and take notes of the weapons on his holsters and back. You reckon you could take him if it came down to it, but he didn’t seem threatening.
You and Wade used to be friends, but after isolating yourself from grief, you don’t necessarily consider yourselves to have a close relationship. More often than not he brought trouble; hence your defensive response.
“Listen, ants in your pants, I’ve done this about a hundred times,” he huffs and places a hand on his hip, waving the device around in his hand. You take another drag of your cigarette and perk your brows before rising to your feet.
“I’ve had my spleen shattered by the Hulk, about eighty stab wounds…”
He rambles on about his collection of injuries and you tilt your head with amusement. Must be another one of his famous mental breakdowns. This might be entertaining, at the very least.
“…You’ve even killed me a few times in different universes!” He claps his hands together. “And frankly, I was just going to let you die here. You’re not even canon, so you won’t be missed, but you appear to be of use to me. So I need you to come with me. Now. Please.”
What on Earth was he talking about? What on Earth was he ever talking about?
You bark a laugh. “I ain’t going anywhere with you, Red and Black.”
“Will it change your mind if I add a cherry on top?” He asks with a dry laugh before nodding enthusiastically. Manically. “You’re coming. Kevin’s life depends on it.”
“What are you talkin’ about? Are you threatenin’ my cat? That’s a new low, Wade.”
“Is it? Is it really? I am certain that I can go unfathomably lower.”
You roll your eyes, halfway through turning your back on him.
“Wait, wait, wait! You see this?” He holds out a gloved hand and catches some snowflakes. He rubs them between his fingers and they spark and fizzle before dusting away. “That’s not snow. That’s time death. Our universe is dying, womp womp. Stay here, sure! By all means, but—”
Your cat launches out of the door behind you, chirping and meowing to himself before promptly dashing through the portal and disappearing into the blurry void on the other side.
“Well. Looks like he made his choice.”
He sighs and lets you process. You take the final swig of your coffee and huff a breath.
“You literally have nothing left to lose. Trust me. I know. I’ve seen all kinds of you and, believe me when I say this, even though I love and cherish this version of you, this—” he points two fingers at you and gestures towards you judgmentally. “— isn’t the best look on you, honey.”
You want to dismiss him. You want to turn him away, to tell him to get lost. Grief swallowed your heroism whole, turning it into a barren wasteland of bitter indifference. You used to be bright, full of light, love, and hope.
Fucking hope. It’s the reason Logan left you to help Charles in the first place. You just wanted to settle down and disappear, to live a normal life. You lost an intrinsic part of your being when he died; you remember feeling it before you heard the news. Fucking hope.
Hope, hope, hope. Nana Rose chants on about it when she clasps your hands with her wrinkly ones, dragging you to church in spite of your atheism.
“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts,” she chants, basket of flowers on her hip. “Romans 5:5. You’d do well to do your readin’, tulip.”
You didn’t and don’t ever usually believe a word she says, but you can feel her faith. It’s solid as steel, pouring out of her like blotting light through the gaps in the trees. Undying. And you’ll be damned if you let anything happen to her.
A flicker remains. You imagine what Charles would say to you now, how you’d hang onto his every word and he’d bring out the better of you. You truly do have nothing left to lose, except maybe your cat. Over your dead body.
“Come ooon,” he pokes his fingers together. “Fancy being a hero? One last time?”
You take the final drag before stubbing the cigarette out on your railing. “Alright, Red. I’ll bite.”
“Then suit up.”
Your friendship with Deadpool was a rocky one. There was a time you told him you’d be there for him through everything, and you technically owed him one for saving your life that one time even though your ego insists that, to this day, you could’ve taken the fight. That’s what heightened cellular control of your body is for, right? Accelerated healing? Empathetic abilities? Faster reactions, enhanced strength— you get the point.
Though you didn’t realise that returning the favour meant following him through space, time and alternate dimensions, you were a person who stayed true to their word, and you hated being indebted to someone.
So, here you were, waking up in the middle of a barren wasteland that was seconded as a cocktail soup of abandoned universal relics and heroes ripped from their worlds, accompanying your ex-best friend to restore your timeline.
But, one thing about paying someone back, it doesn’t technically count if they lie to you about the terms and conditions of the agreement. Only a few mere moments after you come to, dazed by the impact and the blaring wobbly heat of the sun, you rise to watch as Deadpool takes six blades of Wolverine to the chest.
You’re still a little dizzy when you stagger to your feet, head throbbing, as you’re trying to process if, yes, that’s exactly what you were witnessing.
“Let’s see you grow your fuckin’ head back!” Wolverine growls.
Deadpool holds his hands up in surrender. “Wait, wait, wait! I can fix it! I can fix it!”
The man in yellow hesitates. “Fix what?”
“Whatever it is that you did, whatever made you so bad—” Wade pants, catching his breath. “Those pricks at the TVA, you heard ‘em. They have the power to end my universe, but they also have the power to change yours. We get back there, and we can fix your world! Together. I promise.”
You stumble from around a pile of debris, clutching your side as a rib pops back into place. Wolverine sniffs the air, face blanching as he snaps to look in your direction.
When you first make eye contact with him, it feels as though you’re resurfacing from water after being on the precipice of drowning. Your heart leaps into your throat, adrenaline boils your veins and your lungs burst with relief of breathing.
“Troubles always gonna find you, baby,” Logan murmurs, kissing his way up from the pulse in your throat as he rocks against you. “But so am I.”
You’ve never loved him more, you think, than when he fucks you slow like this. A snowstorm rages outside the cabin, howling full of glass and needles and rattling the window frames. His skin against yours burns a fire within you, warming you to the bone. He sweeps hair away from your face before capturing your mouth in his, swallowing the sounds of your pants, threading his fingers between yours.
You could stay here forever, you think.
Your fingers shake from the whiplash of the memory. You instinctively reach towards him but you catch yourself. This was the husk of him, not your Logan. The realisation feels akin to ripping open a haphazardly sewn wound right down to the fatty yellow flesh, raw and needling and sore.
He’s broader than you remember. Hair a little darker, wrinkles a little deeper. He smells of alcohol and cigars — that much is familiar. That’s him, flesh and adamantium bone, living, breathing. Alive. Regenerating. The physical shell of him prods alive parts of your inner circuitry that you weren’t aware had fallen asleep, like intrinsic nerves untangling within you.
You can sense that he knows you, too, based on his emotional response. His noise is extremely loud, spilling out of the cracks of whatever wall he thought he’d successfully built up. This version of Logan certainly had a lot of secrets.
“You,” he whisper-growls. It’s almost intangible, leaving him like a breath. He pulls his blades promptly from Deadpool’s chest and kicks him backwards.
You’re starting to understand that faith thing that Nana Rose was knocking on about when he strides towards you, large and tall. You certainly weren’t a believer by any means but you’re sure you’d be the picture of unbridled worship for the way you’d fall to your knees for him.
Your empathetic power lurches for him, seeking him out as you used to — like a flower to the sun — but it physically recoils from the aura that it touches. It was all your Logan but not in a familiar way. It’s tainted, dark, and it tastes like copper and screams.
All colour melts from his face and his body shuffles in a way that indicates discomfort; a dry swallow, tense shoulders and flicking eyes that refuse to meet your gaze. He omits feelings of guilt and shame that linger on the tendrils of your empathetic powers where you connect with him.
You try to zone Wade out, squinting as you attempt to navigate through his cobweb of emotions (seriously, this guy’s aura could do with a cleanup) but it’s like wading through black-tar syrup, feelings negated by years of alcohol abuse and avoidance. Eventually, you feel something that makes your guts twist and your legs shake: a version of romantic attraction and recognition so carnal and raw that you begin to blush, a warmth that creeps its way up from your belly. A breath escapes you like a punch. He loved you, too.
“Well. This feels awkward.” Wade glances between you both and places his hands on his hips. “Why do you both look like you’ve seen a ghost? Do I need to call Egon Splegler and tell him to bring his ghost sucky-sucky vacuum? Oh my god—” He slaps his hands to his face and gasps sharply. “Cross-Universal lovers?”
As inappropriately timed and tone-deaf his one-liners could be, you’d never been more appreciative of an icebreaker. You think you could’ve stood there for an hour, frozen in silence, staring at a reanimated corpse, basking in the noise of his emotional frequency like an addict finally getting another hit.
But then the noise stops, swallowed up like a heaving black hole had split and atomised the tension whole with its unforgiving jaws. He closes himself off from you. Connection severed. You reach out and feel a cold nothingness similar to how, on particularly rough nights, you’d try to reach out to him after his passing. You’d clung onto his plaid shirts until the smell and emotional residue wore off of them.
“You with the mouth? To fix things?”
You nod tightly. You don’t think you can find your voice in front of him.
“Let’s just keep moving. And stay out of my head,” Logan grumbles, crossing you with a cold shoulder and mumbling something incoherent under his breath. When he’s made enough distance, you turn to your old friend with a cold glare.
“Ooh, brr. Anybody else feel a chill?”
“Wade.”
He twists towards you comically slow.
“You. Motherfucker.” You begin approaching him. He backs up slowly and holds his hands up.
“I knew if I told you the plan you wouldn’t have gone along with it!”
“Are you insane? You think multiversally grave-robbing my fucking dead ex-boyfriend is going to save our timelines?!” You yell.
“Technically he’s not dead—”
You push him. “He should be! He- he was— he is!”
“Well, this one isn’t!” He pushes back. “And I’m not sorry for finding a loophole in the plan to fry — not just mine, mind you — but both of our timelines! Did you happen to forget that? No multi-dimensional depressed Logan? Alright then! No more Kevin!”
He’s talking about your cat. Anger flares.
“Don’t you dare bring Kevin into this.”
“You forced my hand!” He yells, mouth moving alien-like behind the mask on his face. “Besides, I’m not doing this for me—”
You blink your eyes closed. You might reach the end of your tether if he said her name one more time. You’ve been in his company for approximately an hour, and he’s already drilled a hole into your brain with his incessant yapping about the “love of his life”.
“Wade, you need to move on. She clearly has.”
“I will not move on from the only people I love in this fucked up dimension. This isn’t just for Vanessa.” He shoves a glossy photograph. in your face. “This is for you and blind Al and even that shit-head teenager and her pinkie-pie girlfriend! They deserve their timeline!”
“I literally don’t care about any of those people!”
Even yourself?
“Well, I do! I have people I care about! Aren’t you supposed to be a hero? God, all of you X-men are so depressing. Is it the suits they make you wear? Is that it? Can’t breathe in that thing?” He continues poking at you. “Loosen up a little!”
You straighten your posture and the black leather of your suit crackles. You swat his hands away as he continues poking. “Alright! Cut it out!”
“Think of Nana Rose.” He draws a heart with two fingers. “Little old ladies like her deserve a chance, don’t they?”
And even though humans had done nothing but wage war on your kind for simply existing, you still felt obliged to help them. Besides, the thought of other mutants — kid mutants — dying when you hold the chance to save them in the palm of your hand? You were hardly managing as you were now. You’re not sure you’d be able to live with yourself if you kept going like this.
“Alright, alright!” You huff, heart pounding in your chest. You look over at where Wolverine kicks at rocks in the distance. “Fucking hell, Red. Holy fuck.”
You say it again, only this time you scream it into your hands.
“You should’ve warned me.”
“Are we good?”
“Are we go—” You scoff. You kick his ankle, feel the bones shatter and crunch beneath your foot. He lets out a short, high-pitched yelp. “You deserved that.”
“Motherfuckermotherfucker… oh you’re lucky I feel bad about lying to you or I would’ve twisted your milk bags off for that I swear to God.” He sucks in a breath. “I’ll allow it. Just this once.”
“Mhm,” you murmur, walking forward. “That doesn’t sound like an apology.”
He limps after you, floppy ankle dragging a line in the sandy dirt. “I’ll be dead before you ever get one of those out of me! And too bad I can’t fucking die!”
The difference between this Logan and your Logan is drastically blatant, minus the uncanny resemblance. Your Logan treated you soft and gently, but this version is sharper and blade-edged, and your fingers bleed when you try to touch him.
Staring at him feels like throwing up a mirror and analysing yourself, a picture of what happens to a person when they make all of the wrong choices. You’re embarrassed, almost. This isn’t a version of you that you ever want him to know, but at least you can say you’re trying.
Him, on the other hand…
“Are we going to keep up the awkward silence?” You snip, awkwardly adjusting the restraints on your wrist.
You’ve been in Logan’s company for all of an hour, and yet accompanying one another through literal time purgatory didn’t seem to irk any feelings of obligation from his end. He’d been cold-shouldering and ignoring you the entire time, even though you kept catching him staring.
“I have nothing to say to you,” he spits, wriggling uncomfortably against a very unconscious Deadpool. “You got us into this mess.”
You frown, small. You can feel hatred pouring out from him, leaving a sickly bile taste in the back of your throat. You’ve lived through enough hate for being a mutant in your lifetime, enough that you’d become accustomed to tuning it out of your radio channel, so to speak, but something about it coming from the man you loved makes it a little harder to swallow.
You’re quiet when you next talk. “Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”
He shoots you an indistinguishable look and grunts to himself. Such a Libra.
“So, what’s the story here?” Johnny asks with a sly grin. He turns to you with a glimmer of mischief in his eye. “You two know each other?”
You cringe. “Sort of. Last I remember, he wasn’t this much of a prick.”
“Oh, trouble in paradise, huh?” His grin grows. “That’s a shame. Not often we get girls like you in the void.”
“Seriously?” You say with a side-eye.
He shrugs, all blue-spandex biceps and charming smile. “No harm in trying.”
Your breath hitches as Cassandra approaches, wide eyes and tilted head aiming for you purposefully. Logan swiftly angles his body so that he’s standing in front of you and she halts as a delighted, implicating smile stretches across her face. Your chest constricts, tendrils of yearning coiling tighter. It appeared to be muscle memory: his instinctual, protective flinch. Just like your Logan used to, despite how capable he knew you were of holding your own.
“Now, I’ve always wanted a Wolverine.” Her finger moves along the crowd. “Knew I’d get one eventually. But I never even dreamed of having you.”
Cassandra zips behind you and her slender fingers delve into the crevices and valleys of your brain, lips intimately close to your neck and ear. Wolverine snarls territoriality, but he’s unable to move. The reflexive urge to reach for him is overwhelming.
“Do you know that there are so few universes where you exist?” She whispers, caressing your deepest memories. “I even asked the TVA about you, in exchange for keeping the peace. I was disheartened when I found out one of you died. But you’re here! Now, I don’t believe in fate, but this almost feels like it was meant to be.”
You flinch when she uncovers a particularly fond memory, one you hadn’t been aware was so prominently in the forefront.
In the back of his truck, a cigar between his teeth, hands sliding under your shirt. In another world, he would’ve taken the time to do this properly, but living in a school didn’t exactly grant two consenting adults any privacy.
“Waited long enough for this.”
He kisses up from your bare foot to the sensitive skin of your inner knee, lips scorching against your skin.
“Logan…”
“Easy,” he murmurs, leaning away for a moment to remove his plaid overshirt, leaving himself in that white vest you could eat him alive in. “Still wanna take my time with you.”
You’re desperate, he can tell— can probably smell it, too, but you’re far too humiliated to ask him if he can.
Logan wasn’t your first by any means, but with the way you were near trembling for him truly felt like you’d be losing all of your innocence in the back seat. You’re shy and quiet, everything he isn’t. You’re infatuated with him — have been since he burst out of the lab in his grey hoodie — and have daydreamed about what it would be like to have him. You certainly didn’t let him know that right away, and with whatever shred of composure remained around his relentless flirting and teasing remarks, you tried to play hard to get.
Until you couldn’t. Because you weren’t. He had you, and with every fibre of your being, you wanted him to.
She pulls her hands from your brain with a shlick sound, rubbing her fingers together as if relishing in the produce of your memories. She grabs a rag from her pocket and smirks knowingly.
“You’re thinking of that at a time like this?” She laughs all witch-like. “Worry not; your secret’s safe with me, naughty girl.”
Wade lowers his voice and leans towards Logan. “She was thinking of me.”
“I can read between the lines, darling,” she potters on, ignoring the chatter behind you. “This isn’t about a sexual fantasy. Deep down, you just want to be wanted. To be loved.”
She steps back and extends her arms. “After all, you’ll never amount to anything in your world. It’s such a shame that your Logan left you so abruptly. Did he break your heart?” She giggles. “Why suppress your powers in his name? For a level-five mutant, you certainly don’t act like one. You can do that, here. Freely!”
Your worn thin tether creaks with exhaustion like a dilapidated bridge under pressure. There isn’t a singular fibre of your being that desires to be stuck here, but the small, angry teenage voice in your head would love nothing more than to just let go. You’d been containing your powers for as far as you can remember, but like pandoras fucking box, the urge to release them was insatiably tempting.
But, we all know how that story ends.
You take a moment’s pause and a deep breath. “I have no interest in livin’ in a garbage dump.”
She tilts her head and neatly clasps her hands behind her back. “Do you forget where you come from? I think we both know who lives in a garbage dump.”
“You motherf—”
You’d just managed to escape Cassandra’s lair with Alioth’s foggy storm fangs nipping at your ankles when you ran across the abandoned diner.
You’re ravenous, wrist aching from how you dig at the freezer-burned ice cream. It’s your least favourite flavour but you’ve been running on fumes for the past day or so, so you’ll take what you can get, though you begin to lose your appetite when you remember Johnny, and how Cassandra had zipped the skin from him like popping a blood-filled water balloon.
Something is rumbling beneath your surface. A distinct, constant buzzing, like two atoms slowly building up radioactive energy. You’d asked for none of this, and would certainly give Wade a talking to when the time called for it, but, for now, you’re trying your hardest to make this as easy a process as possible.
Your male counterpart, however, was doing exactly what men generally do. He was making this fucking unbearable.
Logan sits across from you, brooding, fingers gripping the medicinal bottle of rubbing alcohol as if it’s anywhere near appropriate to be drinking. He throws you a particularly lingering glare when he notices you staring, but refuses to maintain eye contact when you look back at him
You toss the tub and spoon across the table with a sharp clatter, your patience collapsing.
“What? Can’t even look at me?” You snap. His eyes look exhausted when they finally meet yours. Wade, being the characteristic little fucker he is, pulls a delighted, shit-stirring grin as he glances between the two of you as if watching a tennis match.
Logan gasps as he finishes taking a drink. “Not much to look at,” he says, wiping the back of his mouth.
The words twist like a fist in your gut. For a moment, you’re rendered too stunned to respond, like he’d tossed a flash-bang toward you. His casual cruelty digs deeper than you care to admit— but you’ve had far too much therapy, too much psychological training, to know he’s deflecting.
But you wouldn’t doubt for a second that there was a more beautiful version of you somewhere.
“What, you comparin’ me to someone?” You ask. You can tell you’ve struck a nerve by the way he goes for another sip. “That it?”
He grimaces.
“Do I make you feel sick? Am I making you feel sick?”
He stares at you hard, but silently. He takes a long swig of the rubbing alcohol and you cringe as his throat bobs. His silence and feigned indifference light a fire of indignation.
“You know, you’re not the only person who’s suffered. Who’s lost people.”
He laughs like what you’re saying is funny. “Yeah, right, bub, you have got no idea what loss is.”
“Oh, you are such a fucking cunt,” you spit, slamming your hands on the table as you rise to your feet. “You know what, Wade? You’re right. I can’t do this. So fuck you and fuck his timeline and fuck every timeline that had anything to do with it! I’m done.”
A wave of uncontrolled psionic energy born from your anger blasts from you upon your final words, slamming them back into their seats and sending the cutlery, nearby debris and weapons flying. The neighbouring windows smash, shattering explosively and sprinkling outside of the diner.
The simmering stops, replaced by a stifling emptiness.
“I wasn’t finished with that!” Wade cries, crouching down to scoop up what remains of the gelatinous spam.
You pause for a moment, glance at your hands, and then grab your jacket in an aggressive fit before turning on your heel.
Wade whines your name, halfway through gagging down a forkful of cold spam off of the floor (one of which resonates with a particularly distinct crunch, but you don’t stay to find out whether or not he just truly ate glass), and he doesn’t attempt to get up and follow you as you storm off.
You take a heaving breath of hot desert air when you leave the diner. The sandy breeze tousles your hair, and with the prickly energy of an incoming nervous breakdown, your legs kick and you’re running with no real direction other than the need to get away.
“Stryker got you, too?” Logan asks, eyebrows flicking up.
You don’t look him in the eye when you nod. You cross your arms and slouch a little, caging your heart in. Stryker — the ex-militant with a fetish for experimenting on mutants — had held you captive for several years. He’d brainwashed you into using your empathetic abilities for nefarious purposes, like seducing other mutants, and sometimes important political and militant figures.
“You like me?” He questions, quieter this time.
“No… no, not like you,” you reply. “I don’t have the fancy bones. I heal fast, but I wouldn’t survive that kinda procedure.”
“Ah.”
“I don’t remember everything. Just bits and pieces. Feelings, mostly. Nightmares,” you explain. He nods understandingly. “I’m always on edge.”
“You always seem so calm,” he observes. “Nothing seems to phase you.”
“I have to be. It took a lot of pain and damage to get this level-headed,” you respond quickly. “If I don’t manage my emotions, all the emotions that I receive, touch— it all comes out. Explosively. It has to come out somehow. I could hurt people.”
“Funny. School therapist ‘n’ you’ve got the most issues,” he teases light-heartedly.
“You got no idea, lumberjack.”
You hated killing.
You’re on your knees, arms and hands and chest soaked crimson, sobbing. They’d come out of nowhere, the raiders, and they were hungry for something you couldn’t quite put your finger on. All you know is that you felt their need, their desperation, their willingness to do anything to get it.
The flash of harrowing horror someone feels before they die isn’t a unique experience. It simply varies in strength — sometimes it’s a feather-like touch that careens over you, a shuddering realisation that they’re taking their last breath, and sometimes it’s like a crack of lightning. Bloodied hands gripping your biceps with fear in a final attempt to survive. They’d rather cling to you than die alone.
You hate killing. Especially this up close.
You don’t cry for them. You don’t even cry for yourself. It’s a small emotional space where they cry vicariously through you.
You were black-out when it happened, you tell yourself, and suddenly regress to the student you used to be, sobbing on your knees in front of Charles as he tries to teach you serenity and control after an outburst had caused you to kill a nest of birds. He’d done it for Magneto, he said— so he could certainly do it for you.
You should have meditated more.
The sound of a car gurgles somewhere behind you, but you haven’t the energy to look or use your powers to seek out who’s approaching and what their intent is. You’re exhausted enough that whatever they wish to do with you — turn you to processed dog kibble, send you back into the jaws of Cassandra’s lair, kill you — whatever. Just let it happen.
A slamming car door and then the crunching of boots on gravel.
“You’re easy to track.” A pause. “You look pathetic. You done throwing your tantrum?”
Logan. Of course, it’s him.
“Leave me alone, prick.”
“As much as I’d like to, you and the Mouth still have to hold up your end of the bargain,” he quips, folding his arms across his broad chest. “Now get up.”
You glare up at him and his arms unfurl as he notices your tear-streaked face. His expression drops, softens, before it quickly ticks back up into an incredulous, irritated look.
“Are you crying?” He asks with a scoff. He pauses before dragging his hand down his face and rubbing his scruffy jaw. “Jesus Christ. Get up. Get in the car.”
“I ain’t fuckin’ around, Logan. Piss. Off.”
He mumbles a string of incoherent curses and turns on his heel. You think, for a moment and a breath of relief, that he’s truly going to give up on you and leave. He could finish this without you. It’s easier this way.
Instead, a thick bicep wraps around your middle and you’re flung over his shoulder with a yelp.
“Quit your squirmin’.”
“Then put me down!” You yell, thrashing in his grasp. He promptly ignores you, unphased by the jabs you strike at his back. You quickly unsheath the small knife from your jacket sleeve, winding up your arm before you drive it into the muscly pocket by his kidneys.
“Ow! Cheap shot, you little fucker!”
Wade sighs and clutches his hands in front of his chest romantically. “Oh, the newlyweds.”
Logan dumps you into the front seat of the car carelessly, grumbling something as he slams the door shut and applies the child locks. Petty motherfucker.
You rub the sore spot on your tailbone where you landed on a seat buckle funny. You want to bite your tongue but you’re flared up.
“We should switch places. I’m a better driver than you are.”
Logan doesn’t bother looking at you as he starts up the ignition. “Just shut up.”
“You can go on ahead and smoke a cat turd in hell, then.”
“So fuckin’ immature. Grow up.”
“Mom and Dad can you please stop fighting!” Deadpool cries out from the backseats.
You just roll your eyes, resigning into your chair and folding your arms.
At some point along the ride, Wade falls asleep, snoring soundly to himself. You’re silent in the front, drumming a beat on your knees, awkwardly thinking of something to say. You have the impulsive need to fill the silence, even if you were trapped in a crappy car with a man who had made it vehemently clear that he irrevocably hated you.
“So, if they can fix your world, what’s the first thing you’ll do?”
Logan rips his eyes towards you. “What did you say?”
“I said when you get back, what’s the first thing—”
“No, no, no— before that.”
You hesitate, wondering if you’d landed yourself in a trap based on the sharpness of his tone and the way that anger crackles off of him like static lightning.
“If… they can fix your world?”
He slams his foot on the brake and you just about catch yourself before your nose goes flying into the dashboard. Wade is thrust out of the front window, smashing through and promptly falling unconscious underneath a tree, neck broken at an awkward angle.
Your eyes widen.
“What do you mean: if?”
“That’s what Wade said—”
“I don’t give a fuck who said what. He promised me he would fix things—”
“Well, I didn’t promise you shit!”
He laughs, low and devoid of humour. “You don’t have a clue if they can fix things, do you?”
Well, no. You’ve been operating on a hunch the entire time and had half come to accept that you might be stuck in the TVA void forever. Who knows how much time has passed elsewhere?
Regardless of the fact you truly had nothing to do with whatever came out of Wade’s mouth, you weren’t about to let Mr. Worst Wolverine shit all over him and his plan to save his friends.
“Is it really that far-fetched? We made an educated wish!”
Something dark flashes across his face. You can feel hate pulsing off of him in dizzying waves, doubling with each passing moment.
“You made… an educated fucking wish?”
“What’s your problem with me, huh? Got a stick up your ass?” You reach for the car door handle, but he snaps up your wrist, holding it high. “You better let go of me right now, old man—”
“Or what, huh? Gonna run away again?” He threatens.
“You geriatric, alcoholic motherfucker. I’ve done nothin’ but try and be civil with you and you treat me like I’m the one who ruined your life! I don’t know what version of me you knew but you need to stop actin’ like I ain’t worthy of being here because of what you did!”
“Listen, I’ll tell you what my problem is with you—” he leans closer, eyes roving over you with a disgusted look on his face. “I mean, you are a ridiculous, emotional, immature crybaby. I have never met a sadder, more attention-seeking, foul-mouthed little bitch in my entire life and that says a lot because I’ve been alive for more than two hundred fuckin’ years.”
“And I’ll tell you, that bald chick was right about one thing: you will never amount to anything. You’ll never save the world. You couldn’t even save a relationship with me. I’d say you should’ve died alone but it’s one of God’s best jokes that in this universe you didn’t seem to fuckin’ die, except that ones on the rest of all of us!”
He breathes heavily when his rant finishes. You’re taken aback, jaw slack, eyes warm with the onset of tears born from shock.
“What, you got nothin’ to say, empath?”
You suck in a deep breath, blinking slowly as you flick the emotional switch off in your head.
“I’m going to hurt you now.”
He snorts. “Oh, are you?”
In a swift manoeuvre, you raise your slap him around the face. You knew better than to punch a metal skull, but you still wanted him to feel the sting. His eyes slit, nostrils flaring in challenge.
“That all you got?”
“Not even close,” you snap back, knuckles whitening from the way you curl your fingers into your palm. “You want to play this game, Logan? Fine— but I’m not gonna sit here and keep on provin’ myself to you. I’ve had enough of your Christ-born-again superiority complex. Did you forget that you’re the worst Wolverine?”
“Oh, yeah? Well, at least I’m honest about who I am. Look at you— you’re a fuckin’ joke, pretending to be some hero in a suit made for a dead team,” he barks back, voice rising with each word. “I don’t need your bullshit “wishes”— you should know, I’ve buried people for less.”
“Yeah, because you’re so perfect, ain’t that right?” You yell, voice cracking from the power of your anger. “The almighty Wolverine— the unkillable bastard who can’t seem to hold onto anythin’ good in his life! You’ve had centuries to get your shit together, and look at you—” You look him up and down with disgust. “—still just a bitter, lonely, broken man, takin’ it out on everyone else and a goddamn bottle.”
His eyes narrow, muscles in his jaw twitching as he appears to fight and keep his temper in check, but there’s an obvious crack forming, the dam of his unbridled rage near overflowing.
“You think you know me, huh?” He murmurs, voice a deadly whisper, the calm before the storm. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about what I’ve been through. You’re nothing but a lost woman playing make-believe and hiding in the shadow of a lunatic fuckin’ merc. You’re pathetic.”
Something inside of you breaks. “I’m pathetic? Look at yourself! You’re so goddamn desperate to feel anythin’ that you’ll lash out at everyone around you for some semblance of warmth. There’s a fine line between hate and love, after all! You think you’re so strong because you can heal, because you’ve lived forever? Yeah, right— you’re the weakest, most cowardly man I’ve met in a loong time!”
The blades between his knuckles shoot out with a shink! For a moment, you think that he’s going to attack you. Hell— you even hope that he will, just to diminish some of the unbearable, stifling tension. Instead, the blades retract with a deep breath, and he grabs you forcefully by the collar of your suit, yanking you so close that you can feel the heat of his breath on your neck.
His voice is low and rough, each word dripping with venom. “Go on, keep psychoanalysing me. You wanna talk about cowardice? How about leaving people who need you, just because it’s easier to run? Better yet, how about the fact that you abandoned the X-men to hide away in the mountains, huh?”
Your eyes widen with recognition.
“Yeah… Wade’s got a big mouth. Told me everythin’. You’re no hero. Hell, you’re just a selfish, reckless hillbilly who failed at pretending to be human.”
Your heart palpitates in your chest, each word coiling and slicing like blades in your intestines, but you refuse to let him see how much it hurts. Instead, your lips curl into a cold, bitter smile, one that doesn’t quite reach your eyes.
“And you’re just a sad, angry old man who can’t handle the fact that he’s lost everythin’. Go ahead: keep pushing people away! Keep hidin’ behind that anger o’ yours! It’s got you this far, ain’t it?! I’ve treated kids with trauma worth double yours and they were nothin’ but kind and selfless. I won’t let you project your failures onto me. I’m done with this.”
“Yeah, why don’t you walk away!”
The argument reaches a fever pitch, tension sizzling in the air between you. You’re so close, glaring at each other with so much anger, so much resonating heat, that it feels like something’s going to break. And then, suddenly, it does.
Before either of you can think, you close the gap between you, lips crashing against his. It’s not gentle, it’s not soft— the kiss is rough, violent, a clash of lips and fury. His grip on your collar tightens, and for a moment, you’re both frozen, caught in the shock of what’s happening.
But then something more fiery in nature than anger ignites, and he kisses you back just as fiercely, and maybe a little more desperate— like he’s trying to pour out all of his pain and resentment, into this one moment. Your tongues slide against each other and his teeth catch against yours as he groans into your mouth. Your hands thread through his hair, yanking him closer as if trying to hold onto something real and tangible in the chaos of the kiss, reeling from the sudden spinning in your head. It’s angry, raw, filled with all the things you’re not capable of verbalising: grief, love, yearning, reconciliation.
The result of a painful reunion.
The world falls away and all that’s left is the taste of him, the feel of his lips against yours, rough and demanding. You hate him right now— hate him so much that you can’t help but want him. The sheer intensity of it all overwhelms you and makes your fingers shake against the nape of his neck, but you can’t pull away— not now, not when you’ve tasted the wine. You’re too far gone, caught up in the storm of his intoxication, fantasising about ripping that yellow and blue suit off of him and riding him until there’s nothing left for him to regenerate.
And then, just as suddenly as it started, the bubble of the moment bursts with the sound of slow clapping coming from outside the car. You jerk back from Logan, breath coming in ragged gasps. Logan is equally as stunned, still tight-gripping your collar as if he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands.
You both see Wade sitting up, hands together, eyes wide as saucers as he takes in the scene.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did I just wake up in a telenovela?” His voice is laced with amusement. “I mean, I know you two clearly had some unresolved sexual tension— but this? Oh, this is gold. Please don’t stop on my account, just let me get the camcorder first!”
You’re too stun-locked to respond, lips parting and closing as your brain scrambles to formulate a response as you’re still reeling from what just happened. Logan (for once) seems equally as lost for words, his typical scowl replaced with a look of confusion.
“Shut up, Mouth,” Logan barks, but there’s no real heat behind it. There can’t be, really, not when you’ve both been caught red-handed. He releases your collar at once.
Wade, however, is having none of it. “Oh, no, no, no! You don’t just get to brush this off like it’s nothing! That was a full-on makeout session! I only interrupted because I thought you were about to rip each other’s clothes off.” He sighs wistfully and crosses his legs. “Here I was thinking that you two hated each other— but I guess all that anger was just foreplay, huh?”
Your face burns with a mixture of shame and something else you’re not quite ready to admit. “Wade— cut it out.”
He grins, not deterred in the least. “Oh, but I’m loving this. All that pent-up aggression finally coming to fruition. It’s beautiful, truly.”
Logan shoots him a look that could melt iron, but Wade just simply shrugs, unfazed. “Hey, I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking. Everyone being me.”
“Wade,” you warn through gritted teeth.
“Well, unless you want me to watch (which I am not opposed to, by the way) maybe next time the two of you should get a room,” he tilts his head. “Or, you know, a couples therapist.”
He then turns to address Logan directly.
“And I must’ve missed the AO3 tags because I did not peg you for the enemies-to-lovers type, Mister. Who knew all it took was a bit of hate-kissing to get the sparks flying? Don’t look so ashamed! I’m just jealous I didn’t get to you first.”
He stumbles towards the car and collapses into the back seat. “Next time you wanna bump uglies, just ask for some privacy! You can save me the broken neck!” He gets himself comfortable, man-spreading and laying his hands on both of your shoulders as you stare dead-forwards, unable to look at each other.
“Gosh, you’re both so tense.” He begins massaging. “Look— props to you both for not letting all that angst go to waste. This is a safe space, and there’s no shame in a little hormone-induced—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Logan interrupts, revving the car back to life and shoving his prodding hands away. “Just be quiet back there.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll keep the commentary to myself. But just so you know— got that bad boy playing on repeat, right here.” He says, tapping the side of his head.
You bury your face in your hands. This was going to be a long car ride.
As the car starts moving again, you muster the bravery to risk a glance at Logan. His expression is hard to read but his energy thrums with uncertainty. The boiling hatred seems to have dialled down to a gentle simmer, mostly redirected towards himself rather than you. There’s something else— something that wasn’t there before. You rip your eyes away quickly, mind racing.
For somebody so in tune with emotions and the literal ability to manipulate them if you so desired, you were horrendous at navigating your own. You don’t know what this kiss meant, or if it even meant anything at all.
If there’s anyone you didn’t expect to come across in the void, it’s X-23— Laura. She’s taller, now, with hair down her back, but she’s still got that stern, mean look on her face that intimidated you the first time you met her.
The weak front door squeaks when you open it a crack. A girl, maybe in her small teen years, blinks up at you.
“Can I help you?” You ask, wiping your flour-dusty hands down on the front of your cooking apron.
“Are you—” she says your name.
You attempt to swing the door shut, but she jams it with her boot. You flick your eyes up, glance around for any signs of threats, and then lower your gaze to her. You wrap your cardigan around your mid-section.
“I don’t go by that name anymore. Who the Hell are you, kid, and what do you want?”
“I’m here about Logan,” she says, matter-of-factly.
Logan. A name followed by your own, both of which you hadn’t heard in years.
“He’s not here, kid. He died years ago.”
“I know,” she answers, unwavering. “I was there when it happened. Your name was the last thing he said.”
You’d let her in for a glass of sugary sweet tea that day, but once stories were exchanged you told her not to come back. She respected your wishes— she said she simply wanted to put a name to the face, to get closure, but you’d felt her desperation. Perhaps she was seeking out respite, or family, but you were in no position to be sharing your space with someone who could put another target on your back.
After introductions were made with the others who had been ripped from their timelines (Elektra, Blade and good grief a Gambit variant with muscles so huge he could pop your head between his biceps) you excused yourself to sit outside. The buzzing emotional energy made your collar feel a little tight around the neck, your head a little fuzzy with noise, so you decided to reignite the small campfire a few yards away from the safe-house and rest there, instead.
You hadn’t realised you were being followed.
“It’s not safe here.”
“It’s not safe anywhere, Logan.”
He looks defeated, raising and clasping his hands behind his head.
“I gotta leave, baby.”
“If you leave, I ain’t lettin’ you back,” you whisper. “You don’t heal the same anymore, Logan, and you promised me—”
“I know what I promised,” he rebuts, but not angrily. You can already see on his face that he’s made his choice. He’s not come to you to discuss it. “But I owe it to him. To Charles. He gave me everything.”
“So then what did I give you?” You ask. “Not a home, not my love, not everything?” You slam the tea towel down and turn away from him as the tears form. He’s quiet, perhaps processing everything, but you’re too impatient.
“If you’re just gon’ get up and leave, do it now. I won’t beg you to stay, Jimmy.”
“I love you.”
You don’t say it back.
You wake up with a start, damp clinging to your forehead. You immediately sense another presence and glance over to see Logan watching you with a steady gaze. His expression is soft and almost reverent at first, but his facade hardens with a quick tick of his jaw.
“You talk in your sleep.” The bottle in his hand sloshes as he takes a drink. “Nightmare?”
You sigh frustratedly when you realise it’s him. Of course, it’s him — his energy reeks of whiskey and self-loathing. You prop yourself on your elbows, massaging the sore spots on your temples where sleep fog forms.
“I can’t even get some rest without you botherin’ me? You’re leakin’ self-hatred everywhere.”
“Quit hogging the fire then.”
“Fuck you,” you murmur, but it’s without bite.
A moment passes before he fills the silence again. “What are you even doing out here, alone? Trying to get yourself killed? Pretty stupid.”
“Do you know how hard it is to sleep when nobody shuts up?”
His brows knit. “They’re all dead asleep.”
His hand runs up and down your back.
“Can’t settle?” He asks after you sigh.
“No.” You turn so you’re lying on your back, shoulder touching his, staring up at the ceiling. “Everyone is feeling so loud. It’s like a frequency I can’t turn off.”
He hums. “They’re grieving, I s’pose.”
“Even you and you always said you hated the guy.” You shuffle to lie on your side, facing him. You place a hand on his bare chest. “I can feel it, you know.”
“I didn’t hate Scott. Just found him… obnoxiously irritating.”
“Tough guy.” You giggle and stroke his cheek. “You’re turnin’ soft, old man.”
He pulls you flush against him and presses a kiss to your hairline. You lay in verbal silence for a while, soaking up his presence (god, you were so in love), but you’re interrupted when he abruptly sits up and grabs the white vest he discarded somewhere near the bed.
You lean on your elbows. “Where you goin’?”
“Let’s go for a ride.”
“What?”
“You can’t sleep here. Let’s go somewhere quieter.”
“But Charles said—”
“Screw Charles. You comin’ or what?”
He hadn’t told you he loved you yet, but at that moment you felt it.
And so you do, clinging to his mid-section on his motorcycle, head stuffed into the helmet he affectionately forces you to wear. It’s a warm night in New York, soupy with heat, but the further you get away from the compound with him by your side the more you feel you can breathe.
“’Course, you don’t understand.”
You reach for the small pouch on your hip and retrieve a cigarette. You light it between your lips, taking a seat a few paces away from him, hands still shaking a little with the aftershocks of the night terror.
“Since when did you start smoking?”
You perk a brow. “I’ve always smoked.”
He seems to realise something and simply shakes his head before returning to the vice in his fist.
“Right.”
You stare at him for a long, passing moment, before pulling out your lighter again and offering it towards him. He perks a brow.
“I know you got a cigar in there somewhere,” you say. He pauses, sighs, and then retrieves a thick cigar from one of the pouches on his suit. You lean closer, flick the lighter, and cup your hand to protect it from the breeze, shamelessly glancing at the dancing glow that bathes his face amid the firelight. You feel the urge to kiss him, and when his eyes flick up to yours, you think for the briefest second that he wants to kiss you, too.
Swallowing, you collapse your lighter and clear your throat. You sit quietly, smoking and drinking in a silence only negated by the distant sound of chatter from within the base a few paces behind you. Once you’re finished with your cigarette, you toss the butt into the fire.
“We’re infiltrating tomorrow morning.”
He laughs dryly. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
Your lips tighten into a thin line. “We won’t make it without you.”
“Sure you will. I’m not him, you know,” Wolverine grumbles, slugging another shot of alcohol.
You scrutinise him from across the log. You wonder if he feels as pathetic as he looks.
“No— you got that right,” you answer. You pry the liquor from his hands but the grip he releases from the neck of the bottle must have been a mercy on his part because you knew he was extraordinarily stronger than you. “He was much braver than you.”
His eyes flicker from the flames to you as you take a long swig.
“Although probably just as stupid.”
A pause. Crackling and popping firewood fills the silence.
“But, he was a hero. And so are you.”
A beat before he spits a dry laugh, “what gave you that idea?”
You give him a once over and offer a half-smile. “That suit, for starters.”
He looks down at himself like he’d forgotten he was wearing it and wipes away a stray speck of blood from the bright material that you’re sure you might be responsible for.
“What, you like it?” He grunts.
You can’t help but smile. “Yellow suits you.”
“This is all I had left to remember yo— them by,” he says, tone turning more sombre as he reminisces.
You decide it’s not the time to make another jab, so, instead, you play back and forth with the bottle for a while until the alcohol stops stinging your throat.
Something small shatters inside of you when you watch him muster the strength to look into your eyes, and his look a little glassy.
“Did you love him?”
Woof, that needed a healthy drink of courage to answer. When you hold his gaze, there’s a hollowness to his expression— an unasked question. Was there truly a version of him worth loving?
“Yeah.” You wipe the back of your hand across your mouth to cover the crack in your voice. “Yeah, I did.”
He’d insisted he hadn’t wanted you around yet he’d kissed you and now followed you to where you’d been sleeping. That had to count for something, so you extend your arm and gesture the bottle towards him— an olive branch in the form of shitty Jack Daniels. Your fingers touch when he accepts it and the brief glimmer of eye contact you share sends shivery energy zipping between you.
“I loved him,” you repeat, as if convincing yourself. A repeated balm to soothe the pain of letting him leave.
“He’s an idiot for leaving you.”
You bite back a sob-laugh, imagination caught somewhere between wondering who you’d rather beat up more: him, or yourself.
“Maybe I’m an idiot for not followin’ him.” You sniff deeply to push back the incoming sob-induced mess. “Not that he woulda let me.”
He hums resignedly.
Clearing your throat, you tuck your hands between your thighs. Swiftly moving on. “What was I— she like?”
He takes a long drink and sighs thickly when he comes up for air. He looks down at his hands when he talks as if choosing his words thoughtfully and carefully.
“Strong, smart. Stubborn. Far too fuckin’ stubborn.”
You force a smile over the flinch of pain in your chest. “Guess we got that in common.”
You reach up and twist the dog tag around your neck, feeling for the ring you’d slipped around the chain. You were never married legally but were in all the ways that mattered. Your heart aches for the brief moment of domesticity you shared with him. You expect him to be finished, but he once laughs, a smile cracking on his face.
“She loved kids— had a soft spot for the weird ones.” He squints and rubs at the flesh between his knuckles where the blades typically protrude. “Put me in my place. Stood up for what was right.”
His words strike a chord in your heart, playing the familiar tune of yearning and guilt and grief. A swelling sensation rises from your stomach and you’re not sure if you’re going to scream, cry or throw up.
“Were you—?”
“In love with her? What, like you can’t tell?” He interrupts, face hardening. Another drink. “It doesn’t matter. We argued one night and I refused to follow her back to the school, ‘bout the same time the humans went mutant hunting.”
Logan takes a moment to catch himself.
“When I came back, shit-faced from the bar, I realised I’d gotten my version of you murdered, along with the rest of them. Laid up like a fucking log pile. That’s what loving me got you.”
The gruesome imagery sours the liquor in your stomach. You push the nausea down with a hard swallow.
“I’m sorry.”
“Wh—” He jolts back, face pinched. “I got you killed, and you’re fuckin’ sorry?”
“There’s a world where you didn’t make that choice. You know, I’m not proud of who I am, either,” you answer, softly. “After you left and I lost you… I got bitter, stopped pulling my punches.”
“You never liked hurting people.”
“I didn’t.” You take a deep breath, willing away the warmth that pools behind your eyes. You quickly regain composure with a short cough. “Whatever woman you’re comparin’ me to, I stopped being her a long time ago. Like you told me— I’m no hero.”
He grunts, looking like he regrets saying that now. Checkmate. You’re not what either of you expected or yearned for in one another, but maybe you’re exactly what you both need.
“You know, your accents thicker.”
He says it as if to draw a line of separation, but you take it as an invitation. Your head swims from the alcohol, and against what probably is your better judgement, you inch closer to him until your knees bump against each other.
“That’s what I get for hidin’ in the mountains. Got adopted by a scary old lady and her church friends. I reckon she rubbed off on me. You’d like her, I think,” you tell him fondly. There’s something wistful about it, imagining a life with him. You grieve a life you never had but somehow, in his company, the melancholy loosens its grip.
“Maybe we got lucky,” you continue, flatly.
He lifts the bottle with a dry laugh. “You have a very funny idea of what lucky means, bub.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be so sure. Y’see, they didn’t get lucky. They died, ‘n’ we lost each other,” you explain, glancing up at the stars as if either version of you would ever be in heaven, as if it was as loving enough as a mother’s womb to stretch wide enough to allow space for mutants.
God probably hated you just as much as they did down here.
You lower your head onto his shoulder. “But, we’re still here. Maybe there was always space in my universe for you.”
“You’re drunk,” he observes flatly, but he doesn’t move.
“A little.” You get more comfortable against his tense bicep and close your eyes. “Humour me, why don’t you?”
He sighs, but it’s gentle. “Just for a while.”
“Good, because you’re not very good at keeping your feelings quiet. I know you like this.”
“Keep that to yourself.”
You sigh, eyes remaining closed. “We ain’t gonna talk about it, are we?” You ask, in reference to the kiss.
“Nope.”
A high-pitched whine resonates in your ears, vision blurring as if lying underneath a rippling river current. Paradox has just explained the stakes to you — to stop Cassandra, somebody would have to lay down on the wire and make the sacrifice play. This wasn’t a matter of regeneration anymore— it was being ripped apart from the seams, atomised.
It just so happens that your cat, Kevin, has been loving his little journey around the TVA with Paradox. Cheater.
“You won’t survive it,” is what you say to Logan, when he offers himself up to do the job. What you really meant was: I don’t think I can survive losing you again.
“I know,” Logan answers. His eyes drip to where you palm at the slow-healing wound on your side, courtesy of the Lady Deadpool variant. You’re winded, running on fumes, and know you’re in no position to start throwing yourself out there as a suicide volunteer. You’d never make the journey, let alone succeed in your venture.
“That’s why it’s gotta be me,” Deadpool interrupts, peeling the mask from his face to address you both on a more personal level. “Neither of you asked for any of this. You were right. I lied. I lied right to both of your faces — just to get you to help me, and you did.”
“You didn’t lie,” Logan replies, throwing you a glance. “You made an educated wish.”
He reaches into his pocket and slaps the bloodied Polaroid of Deadpool’s friends against Wade’s chest. The gesture is a final, silent acknowledgement of why any of you are here in the first place, and everything that’s led to this moment.
“I got nothin’ back in my world,” he explains, the sharp arrow of his words striking a sting straight through your heart. “Let me do this. For you.”
You could see that this meant more to him, that he would only deem himself worthy and die a peaceful death if he could do it knowing he saved at least one variant of you. This is more than just a mission. This is his only chance to redeem himself, and you know you’re in no position to convince him that you’d have him either way. But fuck redemption.
You’re parallel from one another, standing just outside of touching distance. It was a cruel existence— reaching out and never quite being able to hold on. It’s inevitable, the pull you feel. You’re dictated by his gravity but cursed by the narrative.
Your chest rises and falls with shallow, laboured breaths as you attempt to process what’s happening, what he’s asking you to let him do. The pain in your side ebbs only from the comparative pain of watching another version of the man you love sacrifice himself for you.
His voice is a quiet whisper. “Give me this.”
But I love you. The words are there, hiding behind your clenched teeth, gnawing at the bars like a feral animal caged in the reminder that this isn’t — shouldn’t be — the man that you love.
Something shifts and as you’re running on the delirium of your battery running low, healing resources drained, you decide that you don’t actually care to make the distinction any more.
You’re in no condition to fight; you barely had the energy to argue with him, let alone stop him. But you can’t just let him go.
One wobbly step forward. You poke his chest, mustering whatever energy remains to express your feelings in the only true way you know how. “I…” you stammer, but you suddenly can’t find the words.
His hand reaches up and he splays yours flat against his chest. Faintly, buried deep behind the armoured layer of his suit, you feel the distinct thunk, thunk of his heart. He exhales deeply when your empathetic energy transmission reaches the other side. Your eyes connect, and even through the sharp, lifeless whites of his mask, you can feel the psionic pulse resonating between you two— strong enough that the wound on your side begins to sew itself together.
“I know,” he whispers.
And you believe that he does.
He nods shortly, releases your hand, and turns on his heel. You collapse against the control centre, eyes needling through the camera footage, desperate to watch the final moments and know that his sacrifice was worth it.
It’s about the same time that Deadpool yanks his mask back on and barrels down the hallway after him.
“Wade!”
You glance back at the party as you creep towards the apartment door to leave. Your consciousness has only recently slipped back into place, having hovered somewhere above your body for the entire time you witnessed your friends atomically ripped apart, only for them to return mere moments later.
You think it might’ve been witnessing Wolverine sweaty and shirtless that was finally the last straw for you. You’re not sure you’ve recovered since.
You thought you were being sneaky about your departure, but a flat hand reaches from out of view, splays and then holds the door closed.
“You sure I can’t convince you to stay?” Logan asks, voice slow and tentative.
“I ain’t runnin’ this time, I promise,” you answer. He rests his arm on the beam above him, making him appear even taller and maybe even more imposing. Your pulse quickens as you look up at him, trying to find the right words, ones that you hope won’t give you away. You nearly squeak. “I um— just—”
He arches a brow, a hint of a micro-smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. He shifts, getting closer by just a fraction. “Yeah?”
Trying to keep your distance is proving to be immensely hard when he’s gotten himself this deliciously close. His energy tastes of confidence, a stark contrast to the self-loathing only a mere few days prior. It’s magnetic. If you make eye contact now, you’re not sure you’ll be able to control yourself.
The atmosphere crackles with tension, like the static energy right before lightning strikes. His gaze is intense when you look at him, and with the way his eyes glance purposefully down at your parted lips—
Jesus. Pull yourself together.
You gently pull away from him and feel the magic of the moment dissolve. “I just… need time.”
Recognition flashes on his face, as well as a tick of disappointment, but he seems to understand.
A beat, then he taps the door before stepping aside. “Alright. Don’t be a stranger.”
Wade bursts around the corner, arms wide and voice booming. Vanessa hangs off of his arm, white teeth gleaming with mischievous joy.
“Whoa, hey there, lovebirds! What’s going on here— a secret rendezvous? Looking for somewhere to sneak off? Should I cue the romantic music or just give you two some privacy?”
You jump in surprise at his sudden entrance, flinching away from Logan as if you’d been caught doing something you shouldn’t. Logan’s expression shifts from whatever tender moment was brewing, spell broken, to a mix of exasperation and resignation, jaw tightening.
“Wade,” he grumbles, voice sharp, but you can acknowledge there’s a level of begrudging affection beneath the steely surface. “Timing, as usual, is impeccable.”
“Um, actually, I was just leavin’,” you answer, tugging on your bag.
“WHAT!” Wade exclaims, face dropping. “We haven’t even gotten to our favourite part yet!”
You tick a brow. “Our favourite part?”
“The cocaine part,” he says, matter-of-factually.
“Wade, that was one time,” you pinch the bridge of your nose. “I’m sorry. Thank you for inviting me. I just can’t miss my flight.”
Dogpool jumps at your ankles, whimpering and chewing on the hem of your jeans. You give her a gentle scratch on her head, deftly avoiding the lick of her impressive tongue. Wade scoops her up, holding her against his shoulder and kissing her affectionately on her wet nose.
“You, ah, need a ride?” Logan offers.
Your heart stutters at his chivalrous attempt. “Oh, um. That’s okay— I called a cab. So.”
That was a lie. You hadn’t— not yet. You just weren’t sure if you were going to make the right decisions if you were alone in his company for an hour. Probably wouldn’t make it to the airport without fighting or crying or making stupid choices.
He rubs his jaw. “Right.”
“I’ll… see you around?”
“I better!” Wade yells, using two fingers to gesture that he’s keeping his eye on you as Vanessa yanks him around the corner gleefully.
A magnetic tether — or red string, whatever you want to call it — seems to strain when you walk away from Logan. You feel the pull in your chest, a fluttering of electricity, but you swallow the urges and ignore the way they scratch like glass on the way down.
You call an Uber, squeezing your bag tightly for a source of comfort as you crowd yourself into the back seat. You spare one last glance at the apartment and think for a brief moment you see a silhouette of someone watching you from the balcony, but they slip away into the light before you can discern it.
You know, though. Of course, you know.