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"The brave are simply those with the clearest vision of what is before them - glory and danger alike - and, notwithstanding, go out to meet it."—Thucydides
The apartment is only ever truly clean if Logan does it. When Wade cleans, he doesn’t clean so much as he squirrels things away. Logan figured this out quickly after moving in. He’s an old man now, for all that he appears to be slightly less than retirement age, and he distinctly remembers scrubbing the wooden floor of his father’s cabin with baking soda and a horsehair brush. Now, he settles for a sponge mop and vinegar.
When Althea moved out, she had insisted that she cleaned the apartment, and Logan hadn’t really bought it because things were fairly neat. His tune changed around three weeks into joint-bachelor life when he realized there were no mugs in the kitchen cabinet, or in the sink. He found them all under Wade’s bed, in various stages of moldering.
Logan hasn’t managed to find a job that actually pays money since he wound up in this universe. He is, to an extent, on the Xavier payroll. The Canadian government also reinstated his World War I War Veterans Allowance, but that’s really only enough to cover groceries. The point is: Logan isn’t a freeloader, and despite Wade’s promises to “wife him,” he is incredibly uncomfortable not earning his keep.
Logan decided to take over cleaning the day he found the mug nest, and he has consistently scrubbed the higher-use portions of the apartment every Thursday for the last eight months. Today, he’s digging deeper. He’s organized the hall closet, thrown out everything expired from the fridge, and even vacuumed under the couch cushions (he chugged a much needed a glass of bourbon after that misadventure). Now, he’s resolutely Swiffering all of the little, shelf fodder objects. He picks up a lamp to dust under it, confident nobody’s bothered since Althea placed it there. She couldn’t see the mess. Wade simply doesn’t.
There’s a piece of paper folded beneath the lamp, flat from its time under the iron stand. He picks it up, expecting an old bill or similar piece of junk mail. Logan not-so-fondly remembers finding a Chinese menu in his pillowcase on his first night. When he unfolds the page, he nearly drops it.
The paper is covered in tiny doodles, and little hearts. In the center, “Wade <3 Logan” is written in shaky, amateur calligraphy.
Logan can’t breathe. It’s that simple. He is effectively immortal, and he is going to die of an anoxic brain injury because his chest is so tight that his lungs literally cannot expand. The paper shakes in his grasp.
Logan remembers this feeling. He remembers holding Wade on the kitchen floor while he choked up a seemingly never ending amount of blood (but it did end, and that was far more frightening). He remembers his own lungs tightening as he watched Wade struggle for oxygen— as he watched him give up on keeping his eyes open. Logan had dialed for an ambulance in an abject panic, nearly forgetting the basic three digit code that would summon emergency services as he, quite simply, had never needed it. Wade had been so light in his arms. He had shaken in Logan’s grasp, then trembled, then stilled altogether.
When Logan sleeps (and he does this more than he used to, but still not as much as he probably should), he dreams. For years, he dreamed of the X-Men, lifeless and bleeding out on the mansion’s lawn. Now, he dreams of Wade— lifeless and bleeding out on the kitchen floor.
He hates it. He still, weeks later, feels the acid sting in the back of his throat as he tried not to sob or scream at his own uselessness. Wade was dying in his arms, even though Wade’s best feature was that he could not die, and Logan— the goddamn Wolverine, impervious to nearly everything— was powerless to help in the face of the terminal cancer eating Wade alive.
Logan sinks onto the freshly vacuumed couch and stares at the paper. He traces his fingers over Wade’s shitty calligraphy. The longer he stares at it, the blurrier it gets.
He sniffs.
^~*~^
The mansion looked the same in this universe.
It was a strange thing to notice, maybe, or maybe it was the first thing any variant would notice. At any rate, Logan’s mind was going a thousand miles a minute, rolling over and over how he planned to get assistance. He had a whole speech ready, and a whole defense of Wade’s entire… thing. He didn’t have time to think about the mahogany paneling. He had a mother fucking princess to save.
He wasn’t prepared for Hank to meet him in the laboratory door. “You’re here about Wade,” he said, bluntly.
Logan wasn’t ready for that, and was troubled by the idea that the X-Men had already been considering the Wade Is Dying of Cancer problem, but hadn’t enacted a solution. “Hank,” and Logan was embarrassed to admit he choked on the name, “You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met.” He could feel something burning in his eyes. Probably just animal dander from Hank’s fur. “If anyone can help him, it’s you.”
Hank removed his glasses, brows knit. He ushered Logan through the door and gestured to then chairs in front of his desk. “Logan, I won’t waste time being modest about my intelligence or our accomplishments here at the school. But what you’re asking for is beyond my capabilities.” Hank dropped onto his chair. “I’ve studied the human and mutant genomes for my entire life. Cancer is like any other mutation. I can assure you there are a great number of mutants who would love to stop cells from growing. There are students here who grow bone spikes from their skin. I myself have struggled with my appearance for years. I have searched for what you’re looking for, and— Logan, there is no cure for it. I cannot stop Wade’s cancer.”
Logan collapsed into the guest chair. He closed his eyes and breathed rapidly, willing himself not to cry or throw things. This wasn’t Hank’s fault.
Hank coughed. “Logan, I— I’m truly sorry. If I could help, I gladly would.”
Logan believed him. “It’ll be ok,” he said, but it sounded rough and hollow, even to him.
Hank buried his head in his paws. “If only I could give him an injection that would undo what Angel did. If I had that knowledge— but all of that’s gone now.”
Logan froze.
“All of what’s gone now?”
Hank dropped his hands to the desk. “Well,” he began, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. “The data from the Weapon X Workshop.”
Logan frowned. “The Alkali Lake facility?”
Hank shook his head. “That was only one facility for the project. There was a… hospice of sorts in New York a decade or so ago. The Workshop. It’s where our Mr. Wilson gained his regenerative powers. It is also where he lost his mind.” Hank pinched the bridge of his nose. “We recovered some data from the laboratory, but it was destroyed within days. Consider the moral and ethical quandary, if you will, of data gathered by torture. It’s the same dilemma faced by the world after Dr. Mengele’s… work during World War II.”
As much as Logan loved Charles, it was utterly unsurprising that he’d discarded mission-critical data for humanitarian concerns. Charles could find a million reasons to give Magneto a fortieth chance, but he would throw away a life jacket during a hurricane if he thought the rubber wasn’t ethically sourced. “Yeah,” Logan groused. “And your country smuggled half of his kind over here.”
“Operation Paperclip,” Hank sighed. “And we were repaid with Magneto for the trouble.”
Logan sat forward and gripped Hank’s desk. “Listen, bub,” he growled. “I’m nothing if not morally flexible. If you’ve got something you’re not supposed to have and we can use it to save Wade, I don’t care what kind of heat we have to take. I’ll take it.” He sat back. “I can’t let him die, Hank. Not if there’s any chance at all.”
“If you could somehow find Wade’s original, freshly woken DNA, perhaps I could synthesize an injection of CRISPR viral particles that could reintroduce the regenerative genome into Wade’s cells. We could, of course, use yours— but we’d need a significant amount of bone marrow, and I don’t know of anywhere with the specialized equipment needed to drill through the coating on your skeleton.” Hank sighed again. “You’d need a time machine. Unfortunately, I don’t have one of those lying around.”
Logan looked up. “I know someone who does.”
^~*~^
B-15 was going soft.
She sat behind her desk, hands folded in her lap as she took in the man across from her. Logan wondered what she saw. He knew he felt twitchy as hell. He knew that every clock and swiveling timeline branch on her wall was ticking seconds away— ticking closer to the end of a universe, or the birth of another.
Ticking closer to Wade’s last breath.
He stiffened in his seat, his right knee jumping rapidly like it hadn’t since he was twelve and waiting outside the school house for Ms. Martha to come back with the switch. But B-15 was looking at him with something like compassion, and maybe a little pity. He didn’t even care. Hell, he kind of pitied himself. He was the one who went and let himself fall in fucking love with someone for the first time in decades, only for him to fucking die of terminal cancer. Logan had been planning to take at least six more months to come to terms with even just liking the guy, and the second he somersaulted onto the primrose path, the immortal object of his affections started to fucking die. It was exactly Logan’s luck, and also exactly what Logan deserved. Just because Logan was the last surviving X-Man of his universe did not mean he got to live.
This was why he couldn’t have nice things.
“As I understand it, you’re going through a hard time right now,” B-15 said, softly. Logan wrapped his arms around his chest and said nothing. B-15 nodded, as if satisfied by something she saw in his face.
“Peter is devastated,” she said. “Mr. Wilson is incredibly loved.”
“You don’t have any idea,” Logan growled, wishing it didn’t sound so choked. A month ago, he wasn’t ready to call Wade his friend. Now, his biggest regret was not telling him how right B-15 was. His biggest regret was not saying “I love you” before it was too late. He hadn’t even known for sure himself until he found Wade simmering in his own panic in their shared bathtub, skin pink and fresh, smelling like cancer and fear.
“I don’t know how to help you, Logan,” she said. “You’ve earned a favor. Maybe if Wade is leaving, the kindest thing to do is to see this through to the end and try to resolve another kind of grief.”
Logan frowned. “I don’t follow.”
B-15 sighed. She opened a desk drawer and pulled out a TemPad. She slid it across the desk. “I know I said there was nothing to fix in your universe. I meant that. But my superiors are confident they can maintain the integrity of the branch that led you here, as long as you follow some very specific instructions with your prior self.” Logan continued to frown dumbly at her. “I offered you this before. Maybe now is the right time. You could try to save them, Logan.”
He couldn’t, actually. There was no “try.” If Logan went back, he would succeed. The greatest part of his grief was not some narcissistic brand of survivor’s guilt where maybe, just maybe, his presence could have made a difference, or at least he could have died alongside them. He was guilty because he knew for a goddamn fact he could have saved them.
At the TVA, time was an amorphous blob of perpetual present, where any and all data points could be monitored, measured, or modified at any given moment. There was no “future.” There was no “past.”
For All Time, Always.
For Logan, time was a long, straight line. The X-Men were dead, and had been for years. There was only one answer to the trolley problem: let the trolley full of his long dead friends crash, just like he had when it happened. Let the trolley crash, and save the princess in distress on the other track. Wade was alive. Wade could (maybe) be saved, now. To B-15, it was always now. To Logan, there was only the present. And the present was Wade.
Logan’s breath caught in his chest. He loved him. God, he loved him. Logan was absolutely fucking stupid for him. For a decade, he drank himself into every gutter on the eastern seaboard because he hadn’t saved his team. He hadn’t cared enough to stay, and by leaving, he’d left them to die. Now, only months into knowing Wade, he couldn’t imagine a universe without him. He couldn’t choose anyone else over the tiniest sliver of a chance that he could save his life. Even if Wade only wanted to be roommates, it didn’t matter. He had to live. He had to. Logan couldn’t stomach the idea of living forever without the annoying piece of shit by his side, one way or another.
“That’s not what I came for,” he said, quietly. “I need to go back, here, to when Wade’s genes were woken up. I need that serum.”
If possible, B-15 frowned even harder. She ran her fingers over her TemPad, considering. “I think you need to see something,” she said. With a sigh, she turned to the screens behind her and tapped a few letters into her pad. Wade’s face lit up the screens— some as he looked last week, some as he looked far before Logan knew him. Logan’s heart sped up. “When Mr. Wilson’s mutant gene was activated, he gained the ability to heal incredibly quickly. This increases his stamina, and allows him to build and retain muscle at a superhuman rate. Like yourself, his metabolism is a little too high, but he ages so slowly he might as well not age at all.”
“Those are good things, right?”
She frowned harder, turning back to face Logan. “You and I might think so. But they came at a high cost. Mr. Wilson’s skin was replaced entirely by keloid scarring due to his terminal cancer, and my understanding is that he is in some level of pain on a daily basis. He was tortured to activate that gene, Mr. Howlett. He lost his mind.” She clicked a few more keys on her pad. “He burned the lab down escaping, and went on a rampage trying to force the man who did this to him to fix him.” She took a deep breath. “As I have said to you before in another situation, in my opinion, there was nothing to fix. But the man promised Wade he could fix his scars, and he couldn’t.”
“An educated wish,” Logan mumbled.
“A lie,” B-15 corrected. “Blatant and malicious. He had no intention of helping Wade. He was just an experiment.”
Logan rubbed a hand over his mouth. He looked up at the screens again, and the various versions of Wade.
“In every universe, Wade has expressed that he would rather die than live looking the way he does,” she said, gently. “Think about what you’re asking here. He’s never had an opportunity to rest in peace. How do you know he doesn’t want that?”
Logan’s breath seized in his chest. He thought of Scott and Storm, dead on the ground. No one had given them an option. B-15 was right. Maybe Wade wouldn’t want to be saved.
But Logan was too selfish to care too much about that.
“If I can get that serum, I will give him the option. It will be his choice. He can stay, or go.” He swallowed. “I won’t pick for him, and that includes sitting on my ass while he dies without the option not to.”
B-15 frowned. “You know about the Butterfly Effect, right?”
Logan leaned forward onto his knees. “Yeah.”
“Don’t you Butterfly Effect this universe. 10075 cannot afford a successful encounter with a Time Ripper.”
Logan swallowed. “Understood.”
“No killing.”
“What if he really deserves it?”
Her gaze was stern. “Then you have the knowledge that Mr. Wilson will take care of it within a few days of you leaving that place. You get what you came for, and you come straight back.”
Logan took a deep breath. His lungs shuddered with nerves and a minuscule grain of hope as he let it back out. He stood and took the TemPad off her desk.
B-15 stood with him. She reached out to grab the other side of the TemPad. “Logan,” she said. “You only get one shot at this.”
He nodded, tightly. “If I fail, you better find a good apocalypse to drop me in.” His voice wavered.
^~*~^
He stood outside the hospital, staring up at the sixth floor windows where he knew Wade was stashed. He wanted nothing more than to go in one more time, and tell Wade everything. Maybe it would be better that way. Maybe Wade needed to know. But Logan was terrified Wade would die in his arms again, or would try to stop him. He was terrified he would take Wade’s hand and be unable to let it go. His phone rang in his pocket. He raised it up, eyes still locked on the sixth floor windows, heart pounding in his chest. “Hello?”
“Where are you?”
“Vanessa,” he sighed. “Is he ok?”
“He’s fine,” she said. “Well, not fine,, but he’s stable. So where are you?”
“I’ve got an errand to run,” he growled. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
“Logan, he needs you here. I don’t know how long—“she choked off a sob.
“I have to do this,” Logan insisted. “I won’t let him die. Not unless he wants to.”
“Logan,” she sniffed. “You can’t stop this. This isn’t a gun shot. This isn’t something he can just heal from.”
“Not for now,” he agreed. Vanessa sat in silence on the other end. Logan turned on the TemPad and selected the pre-programmed destination from the TVA. “Listen, I have to go.”
“Wherever you’re going, you better do it right,” she whispered. “Don’t let him down.”
“I won’t,” Logan promised.
He pressed the button and stepped through the door.
^~*~^
The Workshop was on fire.
Logan sank to his knees as the flames licked higher. “No,” he muttered. “No, no, no—“ He fidgeted with the TemPad, but the course remained locked. There was only one remaining charge, and one remaining destination: home, where Wade was dying— where Logan left him to die, and failed yet another person he loved. “Fuck,” he choked out as the smoke and horror caused his eyes to flood. “Oh fuck.”
Logan sat there, impotently watching the fire burn on. He could smell chemicals and timber on the wind, along with the acrid smell of burning flesh. Worse, he could catch the occasional whiff of Wade on the air. He had been here, and it had been recent. Logan had missed his window by minutes at most. He roared with rage as the soot settled into his clothes and stuck to his sweating skin.
Logan panted. He dropped forward, gripping the curb with shaking hands. “Get it together,” he mumbled to himself. “Shit— FUCK.” He growled again, shoving himself to standing. The only way through this was forward. The only chance he had left was inside that burning building.
Logan would walk through a thousand fires for Wade.
He didn’t feel the heat as he walked into the building. He was simply in the kitchen of their little apartment, making bacon at the stove.
”Careful there, Gramps,”Wade joked. “You burn this place down and we’ll lose the security deposit.”
“Like you’re gonna get your security deposit back,” Logan groused. Sunlight filtered through the kitchen window.
“I’ve had enough of fire for one life time, thanks very much.” Wade gestured to his scarred visage. “I’m hot enough.”
Logan searched for signs of life, and tried not to get distracted by the very obvious bodies littered across the floor. He picked up the singed remnants of a hospital gown and sniffed.Wade. He kept moving, listening for voices or footsteps, sniffing for others.
“That little shit,” a British voice scoffed from the next room. Logan crouched and moved forward. Through the door, a man who smelled like a mutant rummaged through vials in a shorting out fridge. He threw some to the floor, and shoved others into his pockets.
“You work here?” Logan asked. The man froze.
He turned to look at Logan, blue eyes narrowing. “Who the fuck’s asking?”
Logan didn’t think. He simply sprinted forward, taking a swing at the man he knew had been at least tangentially responsible for days of Wade’s suffering— for his tears, his agony. Whoever this was, he was at least a part of the reason Wade had conversations with people who simply were not there— imaginary watchers on the other side of a cosmic screen, Gods monitoring the lives of these mortals, who only Wade could see.
The man dodged Logan, grabbing a metal tray from the lab counter and swinging it wildly. Logan swatted it aside like it was nothing. He slid his claws free, the metal slicing cleanly through his skin like six fresh paper cuts. The mutant let out a laugh. “Little out of your territory, isn’t it?”
Logan swiped in his direction. The man dodged again, but Logan caught a claw in his badge. “Ajax,” Logan growled at the name tag. “So you’re the bastard.” Logan didn’t wait for a response. He lunged, catching Ajax this time and throwing him across the floor. Ajax pushed himself up and wiped a drop of blood from his nose. He laughed.
“You’ll have to do better than that.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
Logan had been trying to “do better” since Wade Wilson walked through a time door and into his life. Even before Laura convinced him he could do better, he was trying. At the time, Logan had convinced himself that he stayed with Wade after he learned Wade didn’t actually know if the TVA could save the X-Men because he wanted to leave the Void. But Logan had no reason to leave the Void. There was nothing for him in his world. The Void, at least, had Gambit’s whiskey stash. No, Logan knew now that he stayed because he recognized something in Wade— something he saw in himself. So Logan had been trying, and Logan was going to continue to try. He would do better for Wade— here, and in the future. He had to.
Blinded by smoke and rage, Logan practically flew across the floor on all fours, landing bodily on Ajax and driving him down into the concrete once more. He barely kept his claws sheathed, conscious of his need to keep the timeline intact. He dragged Ajax up by the throat and pinned the mutant to the wall, claws extending on either side of his neck. He punched him twice more in the gut for good measure. His middle claw slid out slowly, barely grazing his Adam’s apple. “I want everything you have on Wade Wilson,” Logan growled. Ajax laughed, and let his head fall back to wall. “Something funny?”
“It’s against Weapon X mission protocol to share data with unauthorized personnel.”
“Listen Bub,” Logan growled. “You Weapon X fucks are responsible for at least half of the god awful bullshit that’s happened to me in my very, very long existence, so I don’t give a fuck about your protocols, or your mission. Motherfucker, I am Weapon X. You’re just a worthless, bottom feeding, cunt-faced son of a bitch who deserves to be taken apart in one inch pieces and fed to the fucking lab rats in the other room, but I’ve been informed that I have exactly one fucking rule in this timeline, and that’s that I can’t kill your sorry scumbag ass.” He dragged Ajax closer, sharing his oxygen like a fucked up seduction. “But nobody said a goddamn thing about maiming the ever loving shit out of you. So start fucking talking or start fucking bleeding.”
It was a shame, really, that Wade wasn’t there to hear it.
”Hey look, this one looks like you,” Wade laughed. He held a little Kuromi puff ball up to Logan’s face. He squeezed it. “It squeaks,” said Wade. “We should get this for Mary Puppins.”
“Whatever you want, bub.”
“It’s gone,” Ajax laughed again. “There’s nothing left here, thanks to Wilson. If you want to try to break through 256-bit encryption before you burn to death or the computer melts in front of you, be my guest.” Logan let his middle clawed press into the man’s throat. He blinked. It was like Ajax didn’t even notice it— like he felt no pain at all.
Panic welled up inside of Logan, cold despite the fire blazing around them. He spun the man around, jerking his arm upward from the wrong direction. There had to be a solution. There had to be.
Wade’s lips closed around the strawberry, and Logan fought the urge to chase the red juice that escaped down his chin. His heart beat faster. He wondered if Wade could hear it.
Logan held the other mutant tight to his chest and walked him through the lab like a puppet. He ignored the broken glass and skimmed his gaze across the vials still in the fridge. Nothing.
It was blood pouring out of Wade’s mouth now, coughs coming hard and insistent, out of control. He fell to the floor, cradled in Logan’s heavy arms. He was so light. He was fading, pale and ephemeral like a ghost in his embrace, body wracked with gasps and an ominous gurgling sound.
He kept the arm twisted behind Ajax’s back. That’s when he saw it. “You’ve got one,” Logan whispered.
“Got a whole lot of fucking nothing if you haven’t noticed,” Ajax growled. He strained against Logan’s hold.
“You’ve got a fucking vibranium drill.”
Ajax stilled. “So?”
Logan leaned closer, leaning the blades of his claws against Ajax’s jugular. “So, you’re going to take that ancient piece of shit and your’e going to drill into my leg and take out the bone marrow.”
“The fuck would you even do with that?” Ajax sniffed.
“None of your goddamn business.” He tightened his hold, and pain sense or not, Ajax could surely feel the ball of his shoulder teetering on the edge of dislocation. “I’m faster than you. I’m stronger than you. And I’m not much of a rule follower. It’s entirely possible I’ll forget I’m not supposed to kill you if you try to run. I’d say this building has about five minutes left before it collapses. If you don’t want me to break your legs and leave you to burn, you’ll take the sample. Now.”
“It’ll take at least four minutes to get a sample,” Ajax growled, jerking against Logan’s hold again.
“Then I guess you better fucking start.” He cornered Ajax, castling him like a chess piece against the old vibranium drill. He shoved him forward. Ajax turned to face him, squaring off as if he wanted an actual fight. He made as if to run. Logan lunged back at him. “You know who I fucking am,” he growled. “Take the fucking risk. I fucking wish you would.”
Ajax snarled, but he moved to the machine’s controls, warily. “Stand on the X,” he sneered. Logan took a step back onto the mark on the floor. Ajax slammed a button on the ancient drill and it roared to life. X-ray lights shone against Logan’s abdomen. “Left an inch,” the mutant snipped. Logan complied, claws still out, fists twitching. Ajax pushed the drill closer, continuing until the vibranium bit was flush with Logan’s jeans. “Not the most sanitary of testing conditions,” Ajax grumbled.
“Just fucking do it,” Logan growled. And Ajax did. The drill roared to life, boring through Logan’s flesh like a hot knife through butter. He hissed through it, veins tight in his throat with the effort it took not to scream. He could feel the vibranium grating against his metal coated femur.
”I don’t want it,” Wade pouted, weakly. Logan handed him the pills anyway.
“It’ll help you sleep,” he promised. It would take away the pain, if only for a few hours. Logan would do anything to take it away, even for only a minute.
Anything.
The drill breached the adamantium and Logan bit off a yelp as he felt his bone shatter, a pain he hadn’t felt in forty years and barely remembered. The machine whined as it sucked up his rapidly regenerating bone marrow. He watched as the thick material filled a clear vial inside the machine.
“There’s your fucking sample,” Ajax smirked. “You can get your own fucking leg off that drill.” He slipped from the room as the ceiling beams began to fall around them. Logan yanked on his leg, but the machine just pulled forward with the movement, screwed into his bone.
“Fuck,” he panted. He braced his hands against the machine and shoved, pulling his leg back at the same time. The drill bit moved, but only a millimeter. Logan twisted himself to reach for the vial. He clawed toward it, stretching himself beyond his body’s limits with each reach. He grunted, reaching as far as he could until his fingers grasped the glass and tugged, the auto sealing top swelling into place. With his free hand, he swung for the switch by the drill’s main button and prayed it would reverse the drill. He slapped his hand to the power button and screamed as the drill backed out of his already healing leg, fresh blood splattering onto his jeans and the floor. He panted, unable to move for the pain. His fist closed around the vial as the building continued to collapse around him. A beam crashed onto the drill, obliterating it. Logan staggered back and pulled the TemPad out of his pocket with a shaky hand. He pressed the activator and stumbled through the time door.
^~*~^
Hank didn’t seem all that surprised to see him as Logan crashed out of the time door and into Beast’s lab. Logan held the vial aloft. He could only imagine the picture he made, covered in soot and sweat, breath heaving, clothes torn and bloody. Hank just smiled fondly. “No matter the universe, you are a goner for a damsel in distress.”
Logan rolled his eyes. “Wade ain’t no damsel.” He passed the vial to Hank.
“No,” Hank agreed. “I suppose he isn’t.”
Logan sank down against a lab table. He panted, eyes threatening to close with the effort of staying upright. “There hasn’t been any… news, has there?”
“No,” Hank sighed. “The pressure of time is on me now.” He turned to eye the sample. “What did you bring me?”
“Wolverine bone marrow,” he growled, unconsciously rubbing his leg. “Straight from the source.”
Hank raised a furry brow. “Impressive. How old?”
“Either five minutes or nine years, depending on how you look at it.”
Hank grinned. “I can work with that.”
^~*~^
Logan cradled the syringe in his jacket pocket like it was made of glass. He had been back in the present for a day and a half, but had refused to leave Hank’s lab in case he was needed. What, exactly, he could possibly have done to help Hank with a genome sequencing project he could not explain. Still, he needed to be there, ready to take the needle the second it was ready. He had wasted no time. Dopinder had literally kicked a fare out of his cab to pick up Logan and ferry him to the hospital far faster than the speed limit allowed for.
Vanessa had been texting nearly hourly, providing updates on Wade’s condition, demanding his location, and threatening his ability to have children. If Logan didn’t have his heart set firmly and irrevocably on Wade, he might have fallen the tiniest bit in love. As it was, he was sick with worry and terrified to visit Wade without Hank’s serum. He was also terrified of missing his opportunity, and of watching him die.
Logan was the most selfish person he knew. The knowledge that he did not deserve another chance— that he did not deserve Wade burned inside of him. Maybe B-15 had been right. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone back to the Workshop. Maybe Wade would prefer death over life with Logan. Logan had certainly made that wish himself on many occasions.
He sat by the hospital bed and curled his fingers into Wade’s. “Wake up, baby boy,” he whispered. Wade slept on, small, pale, and quiet beneath the white hospital blanket and a seasonally inappropriate toboggan. Logan stroked his thumb across the back of Wade’s hand.
Wade opened his eyes.
^~*~^
Wade finds Logan on the couch, hands trembling slightly around the calligraphy, tiny hiccups and tears escaping against his will.
“Oh,” Wade says softly. He tugs his cardigan around him a little tighter as he enters the apartment. “That’s for you.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Logan chokes. He sniffs. He pretends he didn’t. “Why’d you leave it under a lamp?”
Wade shifts on his feet, uncomfortable. “Well, you were supposed to find it.”
“I was supposed to find it,” Logan repeats. “Under the lamp.”
Wade looks down. “Yeah. After.”
“After what?”
“You know. After.”
“Jesus Christ,” Logan swears.
Wade steps closer. “There was supposed to be a whole treasure hunt.” He smiles and sinks down on the couch next to Logan. “I ran out of time.”
Logan grabs him. He pulls him tight and presses a kiss to his scalp. “You’re the treasure, Princess.”
Wade shivers. “Too much cheese. Makes my tummy unhappy.” He sits back, his arms still around the thicker man. He reaches a hand up to swipe gently at the tears that have escaped. “Hey,” Wade says, softly. “I know my calligraphy’s terrible but it’s not worth crying about.”
Logan chokes out a laugh that sounds suspiciously like a sob. His face crumples.
“Hey, hey, shh,” Wade soothes, pulling Logan in tighter. He cards his fingers through Logan’s perpetual cowlicks. “What’s got you so worked up?”
Logan leans back, eyes squeezed shut against the onslaught of memories. He covers his eyes with his palms and takes a steadying breath. Wade, ever patient, waits for him. “When you found me in that bar, I had nothing. I was nothing. Shit, I felt nothing. And I told myself I never would. I was never going to care, and no one was ever going to care about me. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t die, because I was already in hell, and I deserved it.”
“Logan—“
“Then you showed up and I thought alright, whatever this is can’t be worse, and maybe I won’t make it. It was the first pleasant thought I’d had in years.” Wade’s hand slides slowly up and down Logan’s back. “When you brought me here, even though I knew I shouldn’t be, I was ok. I had Mary. I had Althea. I had you, and you drove me absolutely crazy with whatever the hell it is you’ve got going on.”
“Main character energy and a mild case of insanity,” Wade supplied. Logan smiled.
“But Wade, nobody drove me crazy for years before you. Nobody made me feel anything. Even here, I only felt content and guilt. But with you… I could see color. You were funny. And you had these people who loved you, but not enough. Wade, your friends are good people and they’re good friends, but nobody loves you enough. I only try to. You will always deserve more.”
Wade’s shoulders sagged. He rested his forehead against Logan’s.
“When you came home that night, after I let you go by yourself, all I could see was hell in front of me again. It felt worse, this time. It felt worse to have failed you than it felt to fail my entire world, because you are my entire world, and I was only beginning to understand that.”
Wade grabbed his face and tilted it back. “Logan, you didn’t fail me. You couldn’t have known what was going to happen.”
“If I had gone with you, none of it would have happened. You were so afraid. I could smell it on you.” Wade scrunched his nose. “And I’ve been sitting here, staring at this paper with our names on it, and I’ve been thinking of what I had to do to get you back.”
“Logan—“
“I don’t deserve you, Wade. You make me happy, and I will never be able to give you what you give me.” He looks up. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
“So, new sex toy next week?” Wade teases. “Scratch off that last bucket list item?” Logan snorts. Wade smiles at him, his hand trailing up into Logan’s unruly hair. “You know, I don’t think I ever properly thanked you for what you did do for me,” Wade says, his voice dropping. “I can’t have if you don’t realize you make me happier than I’ve ever been, every single day that you’re with me.”
“Wade—“
“Shh, grumpy kitty,” Wade coos. He gathers Logan closer to him, cradling his head to his chest and wrapping his arms around the thicker man. Logan stiffens.
“Wade, what the fuck are you doing?”
Wade pulls him up and kisses him hard, even as his scarred fingertips trail soft lines through Logan’s beard. He breaks away, dotting kisses up Logan’s jaw to his ear. “Taking care of you, baby girl. I think you work too hard.”
Logan would never admit that his breath catches. Wade’s hands slide around his hips, pressing down beneath him to gather handfuls of his ass. “You may not know this, but I’ve got a magic cock,” Wade chirps. Logan rolls his eyes. “I can turn you into a boneless pile of orgasmic goo faster than you can say ‘Saskatchewan.’”
Logan frowns. “I can say ‘Saskatchewan’ pretty fast.”
Wade grins. “Maybe I should take my time, then.”
But Logan’s going to die if he does that, so he kisses Wade again, and desperately tries to maintain his composure. He can smell the want radiating off of Wade, tinged with a little concern, and a little guilt. He tries to push back, intent on kissing the negative feelings away. Wade’s suffered enough.
“Uh uh,” Wade chides. “None of that,” he growls. Wade’s standard setting is “perky,” and it never fails to stun Logan when his voice deepens. It only happens when his blood pressure raises— when he feels serious and drops the veneer. It only happens when somebody’s hurt, or when Wade wants to actually make love instead of fucking. “Be a good little Wolverine and let me make you feel like you deserve.”
Logan tries— he really tries not to melt as Wade slides his scarred hands up under his shirt to massage at his pectorals. He drags his nails softly down Logan’s chest and torso, leaving little pink lines beneath his shirt. This is Wade’s way of marking him, he knows. Bringing the blood to his skin is not an injury. It won’t disappear like a bruise or a cut. It’ll linger, hot and sensitive from Wade’s touch, while Wade licks into his mouth, climbs into Logan’s lap, and continues his assault on Logan’s senses.
Wade breaks the kiss to strip his shirt off, dropping it unceremoniously into the living room for. He moves to take Logan’s next. The pink tracks across his skin stand out obnoxiously. Wade smirks. Logan unbuttons his jeans, but Wade slaps his hands away. He goes for his own instead.
And yeah, Logan knows he’s got a thing, but he can really only go so long without getting his mouth on Wade’s. He runs his big hands up Wade’s scarred skin once their pants disappear, pulling him closer, swallowing his moan like it’s whiskey as Wade practically falls into his arms. Wade pushes back. “No, no, no, that’s not what we’re doing right now.” He huffs, annoyed, as much with himself as with Logan.
“What, not good enough for you?” Logan asks from beneath his lashes.
Wade glares. “Don’t be a dick, asshole.” Wade stands and shoves Logan down onto the couch. Amused, Logan falls willingly. Wade shucks his boxers and grabs Logan’s briefs by the elastic. He yanks. Logan hisses as the feeling of cold air on his sensitive prick. “Stay there,” Wade says, walking away.
Logan frowns. “What?” But Wade is already back, carrying the bottle of lube from their bedside table. “Alright. I’m listening.” For once, Wade isn’t talking. He settles onto the couch been Logan’s legs and shoves one of them up and over the back of the couch. Logan can feel the blush flaring across his neck and chest as he realizes just how exposed he is. Wade, however, just meets his gaze and dives in head first. Logan gasps as Wade grips his ass and makes way for his tongue. “What the fuck—“ Logan shouts, hips jolting off the couch. Wade shoves them back down.
“I call it ‘stealing the picnic basket,’ Logi Bear—“
“Oh shut the fuck unghhh—“ and Logan is possibly high off cleaning supplies and dehydration from crying, because he is most definitely levitating off the couch as Wade’s tongue runs a lap around his hole and his lube coated finger slides in beside it. He rides it out, a little overwhelmed by the feelings Wade’s stirring up in him. The blush has fully spread to his cheeks. He lowers a shaky head to Wade’s head. “You don’t have to do that,” he groans.
Wade sits up. “If you can’t keep your hands to yourself, I’ll have to help you,” Wade teases. He runs his scarred palms up Logan’s thick arms and stretches them up above his head. His fist is tight around Logan’s wrists, pinning them to the couch cushion. His other hand guides his cock to Logan’s entrance. This, Logan thinks before he loses the ability, is new.
The Logan of a year ago would be shocked to find himself in this position: hands held above his head, leg over the back of the couch he shares with his boyfriend, getting gently fucked to the smell of Pine-Sol and the sounds of the busy city streets below the open window.
It brings more tears to his eyes.
“Hey,” Wade asks, hips stilling. “You ok?”
“Yeah,” Logan chokes. “I just love you.”
Wade smiles. “I love you, Peanut. I’m not going anywhere.” He closes his eyes and shoves in harder, angling his hips to graze the perfect spot inside of Logan with every swiveling thrust. Logan groans. “That’s it. Let me hear you.”
So Logan lets go, like he never does, tension and stress releasing inside him with every gasp and moan he lets free. Wade keeps rocking inside of him, sliding almost all the way out before shoving himself back in.
Wade leans down. “You know, the whole time I was dying, all I wanted to do was live.” Logan’s heart stutters. “I wanted to live for you.” Logan chokes on a moan as Wade speeds up. “I wanted to be with you,” Wade pants. “More than anything. And then you saved me, Logan. I thought you didn’t want me and you offered me forever.” Logan shuts his eyes and grits his teeth. His hips chase after Wade’s and he tilts his head back, halfway to paradise. “I’m gonna make you come now,” Wade warns. He reaches between them to take Logan in hand. Logan’s eyes snap open as he gasps, surging forward to kiss Wade. His arms fly up to wrap around Wade’s neck as the younger mutant strokes his cock in time to the pounding of his own. “That’s it, baby—“
Logan wails. “Oh shit—“ Almost on instinct, he pulls his leg down from the back of the couch and tucks it against Wade’s waist.
Wade’s hips stutter. “Fuck!” he chokes.
“Wade—“ and Logan tumbles over the waterfall, painting their abs with the spoils of Wade’s efforts. Logan squeezes around Wade, dragging him down behind. Wade stills inside him, hands gripping the couch cushion like a life preserver. Wade collapses on top of him, and the weight is comforting— A Wade-sized weight, heavy, solid, alive. Logan would gladly suffocate beneath him for the rest of eternity, if it meant he never had to worry about him dying ever again.
Logan drags his fingertips over Wade’s back, feather light. He writes their names in calligraphy on Wade’s scarred skin, Logan <3 Wade. “Feels nice,” Wade mumbles against his chest.
“I love you, baby boy,” Logan whispers. He presses a kiss to Wade’s head.
“I love you too, Logan,” Wade whispers back.
^~*~^
The sun is beginning to set by the time they stir, Logan still flat on the couch with Wade sprawled over him. It is, unfortunately, his leg that forces him to move. Healing factor be damned, he has what seems to be a permanent twinge in his thigh where the vibranium drill pierced his bone.
Still worth it.
Wade pushes himself up to sitting as Logan groans with his age and does the same. Wade’s frowning. “What’s wrong?” Logan asks.
“I need you to know something,” Wade says, seriously. “And maybe this isn’t a conversation we’re supposed to have naked in the living room, but tough shit. It’s where we’re at and I need to say it.”
Logan’s heart sinks. “Ok.”
“You said earlier that you can never give me what I give you, and that’s not true, Logan.” He gives Logan a soft, watery smile. “I’ve never felt this way. Not even with Vanessa.” Logan makes as if to challenge him, but Wade places a hand on his knee. “Never. With anyone. You’re like an angry cat that only purrs when I pet it, and I fucking love it. I love everything about you. I love that you’re a huge softie under all that muscle. And I love all that muscle too,” he jokes, knocking his shoulder into Logan’s. Logan’s heart skips a beat. “I don’t want to ever lose you, and I don’t want you to ever think I should. You are the best Wolverine, and the only one dumb enough to not realize he should’ve killed me or run as far away as possible. I’m a selfish son of a bitch and I want to keep you forever.”
“Wade…”
Wade swallows. “To be very clear here, forever could be an awfully long time for us. I want that. I want you.”
“What, do you wanna get married?” Logan asks, heat rushing to his throat. He refuses to meet Wade’s eyes. Wade reaches over and forces him too.
“What did you just ask me?”
Logan swallows. “Do you want to get married? To me?”
“Yeah,” Wade breathes. He swallows. “Yeah I wanna fucking get married to you. Logan, what the fuck?”
Logan blinks, incredulous. “I ask you to marry me and you say ‘what the fuck?’”
But Wade kisses him, a little desperate, and almost too rough. “I’m gonna marry you so hard,” Wade promises. He kisses him again. “Tomorrow, today, whenever.”
Logan smiles against Wade’s scarred lips and kisses him, slowly. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”