Archive of Our Own

Logan had forgotten how much fun it is to hunt with a pack, how deeply it pleases the animal in him, which despite his best efforts was never a lone wolf. Now it's almost routine, though the pack varies from mission to mission, a mixed bag of the few remaining X-Men, or Shatterstar, Wade’s friend who, being an alien, can't really be called a mutant. Wade is the only constant, and most nights it's just the two of them. Just Deadpool and Wolverine prowling the city for the kind of asshole who deserves a claw or katana to the gut, who corners young women in dark alleyways or shoots men for money or, tonight, forces dogs to kill each other for the amusement of other assholes.

The warehouse was silent when they slipped in through a loose panel on the roof, tonight's pack: Logan, Wade, Laura and Yukio. What followed was an explosion of shouting and gunfire as they set upon the assholes guarding the kennels, and barking, deep and aggressive from the adult dogs, high-pitched and distressed from the puppies. Now it's just peaceful pandemonium, exactly the kind of chaos that clears Logan's mind. The assholes are just humans with bullets and switchblades, no match for him, the butter to his hot knives, and there are at least two dozen to play with. Some kind of transfer was scheduled to take place tonight, trucks parked on the docks outside. But that's not happening.

Logan jams his claws up through the sternum of one asshole and throws him into the wall beside the kennels, where he squashes bug-like, the dogs howling. Logan turns to the next idiot who wants a piece and kicks him in the throat, slitting it from ear to ear with the claw jutting out his boot. There's screaming, and growling, and the lights flash wildly as Yukio uses her powers to electrocute five guys at once, wrapping them in a long crackling bolt until their faces turn red, cooked. Logan doesn't see her in action very often, and he's impressed, smiling viciously at the display.

Yukio is usually part of a package deal, bundled up with Negasonic Teenage Warhead — Logan makes it easier on himself and just calls her NTW — and Colossus, but those two are on another mission in Russia now, some political assassination to be prevented. It's just as well. If Colossus were here, he'd bitch the whole time about how they should be sparing these assholes, taking them alive. It's funny; Colossus was just a kid in Logan’s universe, and he wasn't such a killjoy. He wasn't Russian, either.

Logan punches his claws through the heads of two assholes, skewering them together. He grins through the blood spray as he imagines the face this universe's Colossus would make if he were here to witness it.

“Ooh, bad guy kabob!” Wade laughs and touches Logan's waist as he passes behind him.

Retracting his claws, Logan lets these assholes drop and pounces on the next, rips the gun from her hand and beats her face in with it. Out the corner of his eye he watches Wade cut into another asshole beside him, slicing off their hand and the gun in it before they can fire at Logan. He thinks of what Yukio said when she volunteered to assist them tonight, when Logan asked her why she wasn't in Russia with her girlfriend: “It’s healthy to be apart sometimes!” Logan disagrees; the only way he could ever be in a different country than Wade is if he was drugged and dragged there.

There's a projectile gush of blood. Logan rears back from it, not wanting to catch any in his eye, and sees that Laura's joined Yukio in cutting open the few dazed assholes who survived the lasso. He watches the girls share a smile, Yukio serene as always and Laura ferocious. Laura's stayed at the mansion — it can't really be called a school anymore, with only four occupants — since escaping the void, and Logan's glad to see she's making friends, adjusting well. She seems content at the mansion, much to his relief; it makes avoiding her easier, because he's vowed never to set foot there again.

He watches her lunge at an asshole, stabbing through the chest with the claws on her feet, and quickly rips his eyes away. He retreats to Wade's side to help dispatch five more idiots who believe they can take Wade down if they just waste enough bullets on him. Logan puts his back to Wade's, brushes their hands together, and they get to it, Logan trying determinedly not to think about how close Laura is, so close he can hear her grunting every time a knife catches her, growling as she chops the offending hand off.

Logan should be comfortable here, at home in the warzone fray, but Laura is always a distraction. He keeps wanting to look at her, check on her. His heart drops through ice every time someone takes a swing at her, then swells with warm pride when she takes them down, swift and efficient like a little reaper. Some part of him wants to abandon his own opponents to hover around her instead, just play defense and guard her from everything. His dumb-animal instincts urge him to build a nest and make her stay in it, curling around her at night and bringing her food all day. It's weird and ridiculous; she's not even his daughter.

A short burst of gunfire erupts behind Logan, and Laura roars, probably outraged to have been shot. Logan forces himself not to look back, just focuses on catching the asshole Wade throws him on his claws.

“Thanks, honey badger!” Wade chirps, and swoops in to peck Logan's cheek before he slips away to answer the next gunshot with a thrown knife. The tide is turning now, as the assholes finally realize they're fucked, their weapons useless; they're starting to disengage and scatter, screaming, probably hoping they'll live to kill another dog if they can just reach their trucks. Wade chases one down, catches him with a katana to the back of the skull.

Logan does the same, using his claws, and decides it has nothing to do with whether or not Laura is his daughter. He just doesn't like that Laura and Yukio are out doing this shit in the first place, practically children, though Logan wasn't much better at that age. He was fifteen when he cropped his hair and ran off to fight the Tommies, and he caught a bullet in his right eye — or was it the left? — his second week in the trenches. If there's an alternate universe for everything, there's one where he didn't heal, where that was the end of him. That was his first “death”: a little girl with a hole in her stupid head.

He looks to where Laura is guarding the doors alongside Yukio, cutting down assholes as they try to get past them, and he wonders with deep unease what it was for her. The first time she woke up gasping and felt that spider-legged chill under her skin, the visceral sense of wrongness that comes with knowing you should be dead, throat dry and chest cold. She would've been dead, if only for a minute, seen it was empty on the other side and known all the shit she ever heard about God was just that: bullshit.

Or maybe that was just Logan's revelation.

When the assholes are all lying dead and the cops are on their way, courtesy of Yukio's X-shaped radio, Logan finds himself without any more distractions from Laura's presence. He can't even hide behind Wade, who's let himself into the puppy pen and thrown himself down there, laughing delightedly as the puppies attack him with kisses. It's really sort of hardcore, because they're lapping the blood of their abusers off his costume, and the adults have quieted, watching this. Wade has a way with dogs.

Yukio has stepped away, still speaking to the dispatcher in her light, pleasant voice, leaving Logan alone with Laura by the doors. Laura's eying him now, inching toward him as if in search of an opening to start a conversation. She's as blood-drenched as the rest of them in her shiny new costume, a black leather suit with an “X” at the belt, and he senses an air of predation in her slinking steps, as if she means to take something from him. But what? What could she possibly want from him? He has nothing good to offer her.

He should not be this nervous over an approaching teenager, but he is, and when she gets close, dark, familiar eyes fixed on his face, his foot claws shoot out from his boots.

“Uh, sorry, kid. Adrenaline,” he says, embarrassed but glad for the excuse to take a quick step back from her. And his mask, hiding his wide eyes. He coughs out a weak attempt at laughing it off. “Don’t you hate it when that happens? I swear, if I had a dollar for every pair of shoes I've —”

“Oh, peanut!” Wade calls from the puppy pen. “Do you think Mary Puppins wants a sibling? Or several?”

“Hey, no!” Logan turns to point a threatening finger in Wade's direction, though Wade’s not watching, buried under a squirming pile of puppies. “We’ve been over this, no more pets! We don't have the room.”

“But, baby! They love me! Please? Baby, please? Please, please, please with a pitbull on top?”

“No chance, bub. You're lucky I let you keep the rat…” He trails off, remembering Laura, and turns to find her grinning at him. Fire in his cheeks, he gives her an awkward grimace of a smile in return.

He's past the point of feeling humiliated by Wade’s insistence on calling him every sappy endearment in the book. Peanut, baby boy, honey badger, sweetheart and far too many variations thereof. Logan used to balk at those names, but by now he just answers to them, perks his head up whenever Wade uses them. Fuck it, everyone seems to know about their relationship anyway, NTW with her wry, teasing looks, Peter and Dopinder with their premature arguments over who's going to be whose best man in Logan and Wade’s hypothetical wedding. Logan does wish Wade would dial down the pet names in front of Laura, though.

Her canines are as sharp as his, smiling at him, eyes slightly wild the way his are. It's uncanny; she looks so much like him, too much, the spitting image of his reflection back when he couldn't look at it without shuddering. A little-girl ghost, his past come back to haunt him. He struggles to hold her gaze.

“Actually, it's interesting that you have them.” She flicks her eyes down to where they're retracting, soothed by Wade's ridiculousness. “Claws in your feet, I mean.”

“Interesting?” Logan asks, frowning warily.

“My father didn't. He just had the claws in his hands,” she says. “Charles thought it was a feminine Wolverine trait, you know, because I'm a girl. Something about female lions.” She shrugs her shoulders. “I guess he was wrong.”

Logan feels all the blood drain from his face, leaving him cold, and for a while he can only stare at her. He's thrown sideways, beat over the head, stomach landing in his throat when the cement drops out from under his feet. Just like he always knew it would, eventually. He had no idea the claws in his feet were a feminine trait, that the original Wolverine of this universe didn't have them, but the people here probably do. No one's said anything yet, but it's only a matter of time, and then word will spread like a plague. He's been here for eight months and made no effort to conceal them, would've hidden them if he knew. But it's too late for that now.

It'll be in the papers again, the scandal of the century, or maybe just the news this time. The internet, too. He's so irrevocably fucked.

His claws fly back out, tense feet and clenched fists, and suddenly his lungs won't work. The present blurs and in bleeds the past; he remembers screaming underwater, tied down and torn open, bubbles rising to where Stryker's smiling face loomed over him. Camera flares, searing his eyes. He remembers the front-page story that wedged a lit stick of dynamite in the tentative life he'd built for himself, demolished it in an instant. He woke in his room at the school that morning, stretched, oblivious to the fact that he'd slept through the end of his world. When he stepped out into the hall there was a growing crowd of boggling, snickering kids waiting for him. Disgust and humor warred in their eyes.

Still blinking sleep from his eyes, he thought maybe one of them had teleported in and drawn on his face while he slept, some innocent prank on the new history teacher. Then he snatched the morning paper out of one girl's hands and saw the picture, read the headline and knew the jig was up. No more home, no more family, no more snot-nosed little brats calling him “Professor Logan,” knocking on his door in the middle of the night because they were scared of the storm, or they'd had a nightmare.

From then on he was a freak among freaks, ejected from the home Charles promised would last forever and shoved abruptly back out into the cold, worse off than when he was let in. It was the seventies. No one understood, much less the kids, and that's exactly what they were, just dumb, traumatized kids, but that didn't dull the blow of their cruel laughter. Their little jokes. One of them, Logan doesn't remember which, asked seriously if he only pretended to be a man because his mutation made him grow a beard.

Hank was the haymaker that day. He came to shoo the kids away, Logan standing there frozen, fists shaking at his sides, the paper dropped to the floor. He looked up when Hank stood in front of him and gripped his shoulders, and he wanted some kind of reassurance, needed to be told it wasn't over after all, waited for the wisdom of this man he knew as a friend, maybe even a little brother. Hank, who liked his coffee more cream and sugar than joe, who listened to Pink Floyd while he worked, who was always so damn loyal.

Instead, Hank gave Logan a frowning, incredulous look and asked, not without a chilling amount of scientific curiosity, as though he had Logan pinned under a microscope, “You're a woman?”

Jean and Charles were the exceptions, the only ones who seemed to understand, though that was probably more to do with their being telepaths than any extraordinary capacity for acceptance. But they just looked at him with unbearable pity, like the stray puppy they'd brought home had broken its leg. Jean told him she didn't care, as if she'd been alerted to a crime he'd committed, but it was okay, she forgave him. “They’ll come around,” she said of the others. He was slumped into her arms, his head on her shoulder, but he felt so alone. She'd scolded Scott earlier for asking what Logan's “real name” was. “They’re your friends, give them time. And the kids, well… You just have to stick it out. You can't leave, Logan, please…”

Charles told him to forgive the others, saying, “Be strong, my friend, be better than they are. They're morons, but they can learn. They can be taught. If you’d just open up and explain…” As if it was Logan's responsibility to teach anyone anything, when all he wanted was to be left alone.

He fled the school and never looked back, even when they asked him to stay. Even when they called after him. The next decade was unceasing misery, and in his doomed mission to numb the pain, to drink himself stupid enough that he forgot the black hollow eating through his chest, he grew bitter. Heartless. It was easier to hate them than to have loved them, so he convinced himself he never needed them in the first place. Their betrayal couldn't hurt him if he didn't care.

The day came when Charles, Jean and the others turned up to beg for his help, and he woke from his stupor just long enough to snarl, “Fuck off, get out of my place, I don't give a shit.” What did he care if the world ended? His world already had. He remembers Charles' pity-laced disappointment, a look on his face like he'd finally managed to give up on Logan. He remembers Scott's anger and Hank's frustration. Jean's expression is the rawest wound in his memory, her tearful sympathy, her hand in Scott's. She'd gotten on fine without him; he knew she would.

“Look at you,” she said, gesturing to where he lay sprawled over a mattress on the floor, surrounded by empty bottles, needles, crushed cans and broken glass. Her lip curled. “You never got back up.”

He wanted to get up and grab her, to forget gentleness and scream in her stricken face, “How the fuck was I supposed to get up from that? That's right, baby, look at me! How could I ever be anything but what they made me?” He passed out instead, not entirely convinced he hadn’t hallucinated them, and only knew they'd really been there the next time he was conscious. When he heard the news. That was Jean's last memory of him, a drunken husk who didn't give a shit about her.

“Wade!” A girl. Rogue?

All he can see are their faces, and then he's on the ground, breathing hard, the world a horrifying, sideways-slanted blur. His snow globe's been shaken, this dream-like, happy new world ripped away from him, smashed and stomped on. The jig is up again. Everyone's going to know, and history will repeat itself, as it's wont to do. Laura's just a kid, she won't understand. Wade will be the only one who doesn't leave him, and Al, but they won't be enough, like how Jean and Charles weren't enough.

Logan hates himself for getting so comfortable here, for failing to keep his distance. What was he thinking, that he was safe? That this wouldn't end horribly like every single other time? Idiot. He can't breathe, he can't see straight, he's dying —

“Shh. Hey, it's okay. It's me, baby — baby boy, I got you, everything's okay —” Wade’s voice, wheezing, soft-leather hands cupping Logan's cheeks. Logan opens his eyes, though he doesn't know how they wound up closed, and blinks slowly until he remembers where he is. When he is. “You're so safe, honey. Check it out. I — I'm here, I'd never let anything bad happen to you, ah — and Laura and Yukio. And dogs! You've got nothing but friends here, all the bad guys are dead!”

Logan's on his knees with Wade in his lap, hugging him, and Wade’s wheezing like that because Logan's claws are buried between his ribs. Logan sheathes them, and grabs at Wade’s waist, needing to keep him close. “I — I'm —” Logan tries to apologize, for making a scene and puncturing Wade’s lungs, but he can't speak. He sounds like he has claws in his lungs, too, trembling and empty of breath.

“No, no, shh. Don't try to talk. Let's just breathe for right now,” Wade says, less choked up. Logan wishes Wade wasn't wearing his mask, wants to see Wade’s face and gauge how embarrassed he is of Logan's outburst. “That’s it, there you go. You're coming back to me. Just keep breathing, baby, it'll pass.”

Panting and hiccuping, Logan looks up from Wade’s shoulder. Laura and Yukio are standing close behind Wade, watching with wide, worried eyes. Logan focuses on Laura, who looks more afraid than he's ever seen her, and is struck over the head with shame, knocked back into his body that way. He must look so pathetic to her, a grown man on his knees.

“Come on, sweetheart, deep breaths.” Wade pats Logan's back. “Can we do it together? Big breath in, one, two —”

Logan shoves Wade off his lap, though he's not ready to stop being held, feels like he's ripped back open a wound that was just beginning to heal. Wade lands on his ass, yelping, and Logan feels a pang of guilt, but home is where Wade holds him. Not in front of Laura.

“I'm fine, I — I don't need…” With a lurch Logan forces himself to his feet, a puppet poorly mastered, vision reeling in and out of focus. Wade is there, sprung up and hovering around Logan, offering his hands, saying something Logan can't hear over the blood roaring in his ears. He pushes Wade’s arms away, and stumbles back from Laura when she comes toward him.

“D — Logan?” Her voice cuts through his panic, then amplifies it, that blasted-apart expression on her face, her hand reaching for him. Because he knows exactly what that stutter was, hears it like a bullet that missed him by an inch, whistled past his ear. “Are you okay? Déjame —”

“No, you get away from me!” he growls, snapping the way he does when he's backed into a corner. He feels cornered now, three people closing in around him, staring at him, pack or not. “How many times do I have to tell you, I'm not your fucking father, I don't owe you anything. I'm sick of that lost-duckling look on your face!”

Laura drops her hand, mouth twisting down at the corners, hurt in her eyes. Logan feels a prick in his chest to have put it there, feels like the world's biggest asshole, but the panic works as a numbing agent, until all that matters is getting out of here, getting home, where everything’s safe and familiar and smells like him.

He breaks for the doors, moving quickly, not running only because he doesn't fucking run.

“Woah. Um, okay,” he hears Wade saying behind him, then footsteps sprinting to catch up. “Guess we're leaving now! You girls stay here with the puppies, I'll see you later!”

“Logan!” Laura calls, and ice fills his veins, freezing him mid-step for half a second, because what if he never sees her again?

But in the end, he does what he always does: he walks away. It's a twenty-minute trek through the dark back to their building, and Logan can't get there fast enough. His hair’s standing up, skin prickling; he feels exposed, as if he's being stalked the whole way by some unknowable predator. The feeling isn't helped by Wade, who stubbornly keeps pace with Logan's harried strides, asking what's wrong, trying to tell Logan it's okay when it's not and never will be again.

Logan's in escape-mode, and he's not really aware again until he storms through the lobby, up the stairs and down the hall to the door with the “Sorry, We're Stoned!” welcome mat. He throws the door open, grabs Wade’s arm to yank him inside, and slams it shut behind them, turns the lock and fastens the chain with badly shaking hands. Mary Puppins races over to greet them, yipping and jumping up, while Al rises from her chair, dropping her knitting.

“Okay, we're home now.” Wade peels off his mask, and he doesn't look embarrassed, just worried and a little terrified. “You’re safe, you're okay, we outran whatever was chasing us.”

Logan removes his mask, too, as is customary for coming home, feeling marginally safer with family-smells all around him. But he knows this is only a temporary reprieve, consulting the troops before a forthcoming apocalypse. He throws aside the mask and takes to pacing, still unable to fully catch his breath.

“What in the world?” Al frowns in Logan's general direction. “What's all the fuss about?”

“I don't know!” Wade sounds panicked, and hearing him raise his voice feeds the tsunami in Logan's gut. Wade scoops up Mary Puppins and holds her out, desperately offering her to Logan. “Here, have some Puppins kisses! I bet Puppins kisses would make you feel better, or, y'know, you could just tell me —”

“Shut up,” Logan growls, circling the couch, hands in his hair. He nearly nicks his face when his claws fly out on a new wave of anxiety. “I need to think. Fuck!”

“Baby, stop! You're really starting to scare me!” Wade puts Mary Puppins down, so upset he ignores her attempts to lick his mouth. “If you don't want to tell me what's wrong, can you at least give me a hint or, like, mime it out? How many words, how many syllables?”

“Logan?” Al asks when Logan just goes on pacing.

He doesn't want to tell them, except he does, the words boiling up his throat like hot coals he can't bear to hold anymore, needs to pass into their hands for a while. He trusts them instinctively, his Wade and his Al, his family; he didn't have that with Jean and Charles. Jean always felt too high above Logan to go to for help, an angel who had to be kept pure and clean of his bullshit, and Charles — well. Charles was Charles, as condescending as he was kind, as much a naive, obnoxiously pacifistic kid as a father Logan never failed to disappoint.

Wade’s succeeded in squirming his way through Logan's walls, the incurable parasite, and Logan's mostly given up trying to keep him out. He's Logan's friend now, so much more than just the person Logan fucks on a regular basis. And Al is kind of Logan's grandmother, but not in any sacred sense, only because she's warm to him. He helps her around the apartment, sits with her, listens to the stories Wade never has the patience for. Ironically, they're all pretty interesting; she claims to have been involved with the CIA at some point. And she knows.

She found his testosterone kit while looking for her lost blood pressure pills, and came out into the living room to ask what he'd been shooting up. Logan was on the couch, his feet in Wade's lap, something mindless on the TV. Wade froze, looking between Logan and Al as if he was waiting for one or both of them to burst into flames. Logan felt that, too, but only briefly, because somehow it wasn't a secret in that moment, just a simple question with a simple answer. So he answered, and he was right, nothing changed. She just shrugged, returned the kit to where she'd found it with surprising accuracy and never asked about it again.

“Sweetheart, please say something.” Wade’s pacing with Logan now, accompanying him on a frantic walk around the living room. “We’re your family, you can tell us literally anything! You're a million dollars in debt? No worries, lemme go rob a bank real quick. You're wanted for murder? Samesies. You’re just kinda sad for no reason? Totally get it, let's cuddle and watch cartoons. We want to help you, it hurts us to see you like this. Or hear you, in Al’s case. But how can we help if you won't tell us where it hurts?”

Logan believes him, and he definitely never had that with Jean and Charles, the sense that if he just told them what was broken, they could fix it for him. He stills his feet and takes a steadying breath, Wade stumbling to a stop beside him, watching raptly, as if the next words out of Logan's mouth will decide the fate of the universe.

“The claws. On my feet,” he says haltingly, and drops his eyes to his boots, the parts of his body revealed to have been traitors all along. “They… Laura told me she has them because. She's a girl.”

Wade gapes. “Oh, shit,” he says. “Baby, I'm so sorry, I had no idea! I mean, I guess I was a little surprised the first time I saw your pretty foot claws in the Odyssey, but I just figured maybe Wolverine always had foot claws and I didn't notice, or maybe it was a reference to some obscure comic that's canon in Worst Universe, like Patch, that's you as Nick Fury. And Crucified Wolverine, from Uncanny X-Men! Y'know, that might actually be Worst Universe.” He stops for a breath. “Anyway, your foot claws are badass, they don't make you a girl!”

Logan doesn't know what the hell any of that's supposed to mean, but he's not in the mood to decipher Wade-speak. “I’ve been here eight months, and I haven't hidden them at all.” He starts to pace again, Mary Puppins nipping at his boots as if to express concern. He kind of does want to hold her suddenly, but his claws are still out, and he won't risk cutting her. “It's only a matter of time before someone puts it together. Maybe tomorrow. It's not fair, I didn't know, this is the end for me.”

“The end?” Wade makes a face like he's been stabbed.

“Yes, Wade!” Logan throws his hands up, punching six holes in the ceiling, not for the first time. It's going to become a structural issue if he's not careful. “I won't be able to leave the apartment, or turn on the TV, because everyone will recognize me and everyone will know. For the next thirty years it's all anyone will talk about. I just — I can't — I don't know if I can do it again.” He's repressed those memories in recent months, tossed them out of his mind like a stale nightmare, but now they're all flooding back. Everywhere he goes, he'll be met with staring eyes and pointing fingers.

“Again?” Wade puts one hand over his mouth, eyes broken. “You mean you… That's why —?”

That's why you're so fucked up? Logan hears. “That's why,” he says, voice very thin. He'd been knocked down before, but never like that; there was no getting up from that.

“Logan, sweetie, you need to calm down before you burst something,” Al says evenly. She lowers herself back into her chair and holds out her hands. “Come here, come stand by me.”

He obeys reluctantly, dragging his feet over to stand in front of her, and quickly sheathes his claws when she takes one of his hands in both of hers. A shiver washes up his arm and down his spine when she starts to stroke the hair on the back of his hand, cool and soothing.

“Just breathe.” She lifts her head and almost manages to meet his eyes. “Everything's gonna be okay, sugar. You're getting all worked up over something you don't know is gonna happen.”

“Yeah.” Wade sniffles. He comes over, rubbing at his eyes before he takes Logan's other hand, kisses his healing knuckles. “Honey, you're giving people way too much credit. No one's going to look at your foot claws and magically know you're trans.”

Trans. Logan tenses, heart jerking like a bird poked through the bars of its cage. That's a new term, one he only started hearing over the last decade or so, and Wade tries to use it sometimes, but Logan doesn't like it, doesn't identify with it. Mostly he just considers himself cursed; that's his label.

“Even if,” Wade says, stressing the “if.” “Some basement-dwelling loser fanboy connects the dots and makes some deranged Reddit post about it — again, like, zero percent chance of that ever happening — it wouldn't be the end of the world! There are so many people like you these days, or, actually, there probably always were, it's just not a death sentence anymore to come out and say it.”

Logan shakes his head, growling, and doesn't pull away only because he physically can't. He needs them close, needs to feel them, even if Wade’s being a jackass, doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

“Wade’s right, you know.” Al squeezes Logan's hand. “Just this morning I was listening to a young man on the news talk about a, um, trans pride march! Yep, right here in Vancouver. The anchor lady was very supportive, and it sounded like there was a crowd cheering behind him. God, there must've been hundreds of people there.”

It's difficult to wrap his head around, and Logan refuses to even attempt it. She misheard, or she's lying to make him feel better; he knows to hide that part of himself like he knows to breathe, because he'll come as close as he can to dying if he doesn't.

“See?” Wade turns Logan's hand over to kiss his palm, then his wrist. Wade’s smiling when Logan looks at him, eyes soft. “Welcome to the twenty-first century, baby boy. It's not perfect, and I'm not all that qualified to comment, but I'd hazard to say it's the best it's ever been. Now, I'm not trying to tell you to come out, that's your business and no one else's. I'm just saying that if your whole doomsday scenario came to pass, sure, there might be some assholes out there who'd give you a hard time, I'll take that trash out for you in body bags, but you'd have so much support! People love you here, you're an icon!”

Logan grimaces, and finally manages to wrench his hands away, retreating to stand in the far corner of the room. He faces the wall, breathing hard, feeling both panicked and aimless. He wants to run, but where? He wants to fight, claw-tips pricking between his fingers and toes, but who? He's got this sick, urgent impulse, like he needs to rip all his hair out to fix this. Instead he braces his hands to the wall, watches his fingers twitch, knuckles just starting to split around the points of his claws, blood beading there.

“Baby, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that, that was too much,” Wade says behind Logan. The floorboards creak as he slowly approaches. “You're safe, you're fine, you never have to tell another soul if you don't want to. I promise, nothing's ending. You just have to calm down before you make yourself sick. Please come here, honey? Let me hold you?”

Something collapses in Logan at that, a wall brought down, one that never really wanted to stand in the first place. He drops his hands and turns around, relaxing slightly when he sees Wade’s eyes, no pity or panic in them, just care, and a smile, small and reassuring, like maybe everything really could be alright. Logan goes to him, moving slowly, unspeakably grateful for the way Wade just opens his arms and lets Logan step into the hug at his own pace. Wade only wraps his arms around Logan when Logan initiates by pressing his face to the side of Wade’s neck, breathing him in through the collar of his costume. Wade smells like blood and sweat and himself, and Logan. That's always soothing.

“There, sweetheart. That's better, I've got you.” Wade kisses Logan's cheek, rocks them side-to-side, sweeping his hands over Logan's back. Logan rests his hands on Wade’s hips, fists loosening there. “I'm right here. I'm gonna get you through this. What do you want to do, baby, you wanna watch TV, get your mind off things?”

Logan shakes his head against Wade’s shoulder. He's so tired suddenly, and he slumps onto Wade, letting Wade take half his weight. “Lie down,” he whispers.

“Then that's what we'll do.” Wade presses another kiss to Logan's cheek and starts walking him down the hallway, arm locked around Logan's waist. Logan goes easily, relieved for the support. “Goodnight, Al! Goodnight, Mary Puppins! Love you,” Wade calls, and Logan looks back to where Mary Puppins has jumped into Al's lap. Al is turned toward them, a worried frown on her face.

“Goodnight,” Logan echoes, quiet. Leaving Al makes him anxious, but it's okay so long as he can smell that she's still in the apartment.

“Goodnight, boys,” she says. “You get some sleep, Logan. Everything will seem brighter in the morning, you'll see.”

Numbed empty, Logan lets Wade guide him into the bedroom, moving mechanically, and goes straight to the bed while Wade turns on the light and shuts the door. Logan collapses down onto the mattress, feeling hopeless the way he used to when he laid himself out on the floor of whatever shitty tenement he was staying in to be drunk all day, only emerging to restock on thought-killing poison. He has none of that now, and he's increasingly desperate for some form of relief. A drink, or something stronger, something strong enough to kill a human. He once got his hands on some carfentanil in the eighties, the stuff they use to knock out elephants; it was fantastic, left him cross-eyed for a week.

“Wade?” He's curled up tight on his side, hugging himself, turned away from Wade. “Bub, can you bring me the coke and the booze? All of it, so I can sleep.” He waits to hear the door opening again, used to having Wade at his beck and call.

Instead, Wade sighs and comes to sit at the edge of the bed, reaching over to rub his hand up and down Logan's side. Logan allows this, despite being a little angry about his continued sobriety. “As much as it pains me to deny my baby boy anything,” Wade says softly, “there are some problems for which getting trashed isn't the best solution, and I think this is one of them.”

Logan whirls, sitting up to growl in Wade's face, but deflates at the intent way Wade’s watching him, still petting him through his costume. It's not just empty reassurance; there's something in Wade's eyes that tells Logan he has an idea, something he thinks will help better than the usual medicine. The petting assists in melting Logan's anger, until he's just leaning helplessly toward Wade.

“Shh, sweetheart. It's okay.” Wade scoots closer and starts removing Logan's costume, finding all the hidden clasps with practiced ease. Logan lets him, but keeps his hands on the mattress, just watching Wade work, the effect almost hypnotic. Logan feels very willing to be taken care of; he just wishes Wade would bring him one drink, at least, or ten. “Let's get out of these super suits before we ruin another sheet, okay, honey? We don't want to sleep in a bed that smells like dead dog-fighters, that's gross.”

Wade’s voice is all softness, the charming song to Logan's irate cobra, fingers light and gentle. Logan lifts his hips so Wade can slide his pants off, then sits up more so Wade can peel off his chest armor. This leaves Logan in just his boxers and undershirt, his “binder” underneath.

He found a few packs of them in his drawer of Wade’s dresser last month, and he knows Wade put them there for him, but he never asked about it and Wade never said anything. Logan doesn't want to talk about it, though he's curious as to what they're meant to be used for, maybe some form of compression therapy. He can't imagine they were actually made for people like him, of course not, or the testosterone. He's always bought that through dealers, dark-alley type deals, and the last time he checked it was made to treat hormone disorders in men. The binders are more comfortable and easier to put on than bandages, though he misses them sometimes, their constant, constrictive ache like a holding hand around his chest. That was his best friend for two centuries.

That's Wade's role now, improbably. He's with Logan constantly, and at some point Logan stopped pushing him away, started clinging back. Wade slides Logan's boots off, then his shredded socks, then his gloves. He drops all of Logan's bloody costume in a pile on the floor, mumbling under his breath all the while about how everything's going to be okay. Logan feels flayed, but in a good way, the dead skin peeled back to allow for new growth.

“Good boy, you're all clean — Oops, missed a spot!” Wade licks the pad of his thumb and scrubs it over Logan's cheek, probably swiping away a speck of blood there. Logan turns into the touch, mesmerized by the way it's tender but not necessarily sexual. “There, you're gorgeous. Now it's my turn…” Wade rolls away and squirms out of his own costume, stripping down to his briefs, kicking everything off the bed and into the pile with Logan's. “You're gonna be okay, I'll tell you that as many times as you need until you believe it. I'll take care of you, baby boy, don't worry, just let me get these boots off.”

Logan watches silently, discomfort creeping in as he wonders if Wade is going to suggest sex as a method of numbing the pain. Logan decides he'll tell Wade no if he does, because nothing about the chasm in Logan's stomach is hot. Wade must know that, Logan thinks, because he let Logan keep his boxers.

“There! Now we're all comfy-cozy.” Wade cuddles up to Logan, puts his arm around Logan's chest, cups Logan's cheek and kisses his jaw. Logan realizes now that he's never really told Wade no before; he's vetoed certain things during sex, but never actually ended the sex because of it. “I know some games we can play,” Wade says, mouthing behind Logan's ear. “You’ll like ‘em, you can stop thinking and be someone else for a little while, let me get you all calm and ready to sleep.”

So it is sex. Logan feels stabbed in the back, and he shoves Wade away from him, furious. “I'm not fucking you right now, you prick!” he snaps, snarling, fortifying himself against the hurt on Wade's face where he lands sprawled over the other side of the bed. “You have no fucking idea what I'm going through! Why — I can't believe you'd — no, actually, I shouldn't be surprised. After all, you only wanted me in the first place because I have a ‘pussy.’” He spits the word like bile, and turns onto his side again, curled up tight on the verge of tears. His chest aches, as if he just shot himself.

“Logan,” Wade says after a second of taut silence, calmer than Logan would've expected. “You know that's not true.”

Logan takes a breath, a rough, broken sound. “Yeah. I didn't mean that, I'm sorry, I just — I don't want it tonight.”

“Of course not, honey, that's not what I meant.” Wade comes back, like always, no matter how hard Logan pushes him away. He sits over Logan, his warmth at Logan's back, but doesn't touch. “I know you're hurting, and I know I'll never really understand. I'm on the outside of this, I get it. I just wish you'd let me in a little more, y'know? I'm always here for you, just waiting for you to let me help, ‘cause that's all I want to do, take care of you. Can I touch you? If I try anything, you have my permission to kick my ass, because clearly I'm being mind-controlled by some alien parasite — because I would never.”

Of course he wouldn't; what was Logan thinking? He whines and turns over, wanting to be touched, knowing it's safe. Wade’s one of the only people Logan's ever known whose touch feels wholly safe, no sharp edges or wordless demands. Even when Logan hated him and they fought, Logan never worried about Wade’s ability to hurt him. There's just something so non-intimidating about Wade, a softness that shines through even when he's masked and wielding katanas. But not weakness.

He's a good man, good in a way that few people are, and certainly not Logan. It took Logan a while to see that, but he does now. Maybe he always saw it, subconsciously, with the same instinct that lets him find his way in the dark.

“Wade,” he says, voice cracking apart, and he hopes Wade can hear what it's breaking under, the weight of how much Logan needs him.

“Shh. That's it, you're okay.” Wade strokes Logan's side again, chasing away tension with the slow, repetitive drag of his palm over Logan's shirt, from his shoulder to his hip and back again, never straying any lower. Logan wraps his arms around Wade’s waist and counts the raised scars on Wade’s stomach, amazed by how much better he feels already, just for holding Wade. He lays his head on Wade’s thigh. “The world's not ending, sweetheart. We're gonna get through it. Those horrible things you're thinking aren't gonna happen, I promise. You're not in Worst Universe anymore, remember? This is Best Universe. Know why? ‘Cause we're here together.”

Logan sighs when Wade puts his other hand in Logan's hair, scratching lightly at that treacherous spot behind his ear. His eyes flutter shut for a second, and for just this second he's content, melted down. Then he remembers the storm that's coming, and tenses up again. “What game?” he asks, wary and whispering.

Wade smiles gently down at him, traces the shell of Logan's ear with his thumb. “It’s in the realm of roleplay.”

“Wade…” Logan growls, though he's not really worried. His chin rests near Wade’s crotch, and he can feel that Wade’s soft in his briefs.

“It's non-sexual, I swear! Or, it could involve sex, eventually, if you wanted, but not tonight.” Wade bends down to kiss Logan's cheek, and Logan's growl sizzles out in his mouth. “It's kind of like an emotional healing, bonding activity, I guess. Sorry, I've done this stuff before, but I've never actually had to explain it. Um. So, basically, the goal would be for you to get out of your head and just let me take care of everything for a while. Just touching and trusting, and all the touching happens above the waist. What do you think, peanut, you want to give it a try?”

Logan still doesn't know what the hell Wade's talking about, but that's par for the course, and at times like these he's tempted to just go, “Why not?” His fresh start is falling apart around him, so he might as well enjoy the good while it lasts. Wade is the gleeful architect of the bulk of the good Logan’s experienced this year. He can be a little pushy sometimes, a little insane, but he's never done anything Logan didn't want, and even things Logan was on the fence about at first, like fingers up his ass, always feel good in the end. Everything with Wade feels good, even just lying with his head in Wade’s lap while they watch TV, Wade’s fingers in his hair, like now.

It's not something Logan would ever admit aloud, but he likes Wade’s clinginess, how Wade hovers over and dotes on him. He was uncomfortable with how much he liked it for a while, and he thinks that discomfort was born of his associating being taken care of with being a girl, though no one ever took care of him when he was a girl. He's never had anyone like Wade, someone who can be stabbed and thrown away and still come crawling back, someone who loves Logan so stupidly and stubbornly. Logan loves Wade, too, and he wishes he could say so, but the words swell too big for his throat whenever he tries.

“Okay,” he says, so quiet he more so just mouths the word against Wade’s skin, but he's sure Wade heard him. Wade always hears him, even the things he leaves unsaid.

“Okay!” Wade beams, rubbing his palm over Logan's nape. “So, non-sexual roleplay. This stuff can be a really healthy way of coping with shit and dealing with trauma without having to get totally plastered. Little-known fact, peanut, I'm actually a licensed roleplay therapist, got my certification from this BDSM dungeon in Saskatoon. Just kidding, I don't have a degree, but I have experience. Lots of experience —” He pauses at the sharp look Logan shoots up at him. “Experience with people who meant nothing to me, I swear, you're the love of my life and every affair I ever had was just practice for when I finally found you, even if I didn't know that at the time. How am I doing so far?”

Logan sighs. “Get to the point,” he says, though Wade’s rambling provides a nice distraction from the crushing, ceiling-crashing-down reality, and he doesn't really care that Wade’s been with other people, god knows Logan has. But he'd rather not hear about it.

“Yes, sir. The point is, there's a couple of things we could try.” Wade is quiet for a second, hands going still, one on Logan's shoulder, the other on Logan's waist. Solemn-toned, Wade says, “You could call me daddy.”

What? Logan balks, stomach lurching as he sits up to boggle at Wade, who doesn't seem to realize the absurdity of what he just said, and it's clearly not a joke, his expression very serious. “Fuck off,” Logan growls. “Wade, ew! You ever say that shit to me again and I'll —”

“Shh. Okay, we don't like that one, that's okay.” Wade takes Logan's head in his hands, petting his hair in that hypnotizing way again, scattering most of Logan's unease. He doesn't fight when Wade draws him in to rest his head on Wade’s shoulder, just huffs and nips at Wade's neck. Wade puts his mouth to Logan's ear, speaking softly. “You want to be my little kitty cat? I think of you as my kitty sometimes, ‘cause of your pretty claws and demeanor generally. Or maybe you'd rather be my little puppy?”

Logan shudders, immediately distracted from the flash of rage he felt at being compared to a cat, though it's not as inaccurate as he'd like it to be. He's so embarrassed, whining while Wade rubs his back, but maybe he shouldn't be, because Wade’s the freak who came up with this.

“Take your time,” Wade coos, and he's not laughing, has never laughed at Logan. “Just tell me what you want, sweetheart, and I'll give it to you, you know that.”

This is too much, so Logan takes a minute, stunned and trembling, to hide his face against Wade’s shoulder. He clutches Wade’s waist, shuffling closer, both of them on their knees on the bed. Something about “puppy” wraps around his spine, warm and helpless, and he can't believe he's honestly considering this, but puppy feels more masculine to him than kitty. He doesn't know where this is going, if not sex, but he hopes it's like when Wade calls him a good boy and pets his hair, which he likes, albeit guiltily.

He presses his face to Wade’s cheek and whispers, “Puppy.”

“Oh, yay!” Wade says, hugging Logan tightly. “Good job choosing, puppy, I'm so proud of you, such a good boy for me.”

Logan wants to scoff and pull away, because Wade’s praising him as if he cracked some impossible code, but he goes a little liquid as Wade rubs his back and rocks him, pulling Logan more completely into his lap. Logan's eyes sting, painfully affected suddenly, so he closes them, face tucked against Wade’s neck, and just listens.

“Look at you, my beautiful little puppy! You're so small, you fit right in my lap,” Wade gushes. “Pretty, pretty boy. You're so good.”

At a loss, Logan shrinks as much as he can into Wade’s arms, hands clinging hard to Wade's shoulders, wanting to hide from the new warmth in his chest. He feels helpless, but Wade’s holding him, telling him he's good even though he's done nothing except panic and crumple under pressure, tonight and all his life. “Puppy” is new, a rare endearment Wade hasn't called Logan before, and it's making him feel small in a strangely comforting way, like maybe it's okay to be weak, because Wade’s right here.

“Aww, look at your tail wagging, you're so happy. Oh, and your widdle paws!” Wade takes Logan's hand from his shoulder and presses kisses to his palm and fingers, again and again, making exaggerated “mwah!” sounds. It's disgusting. Logan watches shyly, burning from the tips of his ears to the bottom of his heart, and doesn't pull away.

He remembers that Wade called this a game, but he's not clear on the rules, or even the point. He would've expected being treated like a dog to be more humiliating. “Do — do you want me to sit on the floor?” he asks, whimpering, sure it would physically hurt him to leave Wade’s lap.

“Shh. Baby, of course not!” Wade smacks the next loud kiss on Logan's cheek, and Logan smiles, leaning into it. “My perfect little puppy always gets to sleep in bed with me. You get to climb on the furniture, and shred everything, and bite as much as you want! Just like Mary Puppins. You're only a puppy, it's not your fault.”

Logan groans, overwhelmed and wounded by what that does for him, like taking all the responsibility out of his hands. And he'd sooner die than admit it, but he's sometimes jealous of that little rat, the way Wade fawns over her. “But,” he says, still confused. “I don't get it. What are the rules?”

“No rules. You just kinda do whatever you want and I tell you good job, ‘cause you've got that cute privilege. The cutest boy in the world.” Wade gently pinches Logan's cheek, eyes soft. “We’re just gonna lie down and go to sleep, nothing crazy. All you have to do is let me take care of you, and you're doing such a good job already, good puppy.”

Wade eases them down until they're lying on their sides, and Logan just whines and clings. They curl around each other, Logan's head under Wade’s chin, Wade’s hands sweeping over Logan's back. Wade holds him like this fairly regularly, but it feels like the first time again, so Logan touches Wade’s chest, mapping Wade’s scars with his fingers as if he doesn't know them all by heart. Wade is so warm, and he smells so good.

He pulls the comforter over them, and Logan cuddles closer, burrowing into their shared heat. “Tonight,” Wade says, “there's nothing outside of this room, okay? Except, like, Al and Mary Puppins are still here, I know you can smell them, but for the purposes of our game, this bed is the whole world, and we're the only people in it. And we're gonna stop calling it a game now, gotta take your duties seriously. Your duties being just staying right here and breathing deep. There you go, good job, puppy. Good boy.”

Logan splinters apart under the praise, because really, that's all he's ever wanted to be. Good and a boy. But it's not right, he doesn't deserve it. He's not the good guy; he's the dangerous one who runs away from his friends, who lies down to die when they need him — only they're the ones who end up dying. That's the punchline. He's the one who tells Laura to get the fuck away from him. That poor kid. He's wearing her father's face, someone she loved, and he said that shit to her.

“I — I'm not,” he protests, breath narrowing again, though it helps that his nose is tucked under Wade’s jaw, Wade’s scent thick on every inhale. “Fuck, what I said to Laura back there, did you hear me —?”

“Shh, shh. No, puppy, we're not talking about that right now. We're calming down and going to sleep.” Wade’s voice is still gentle, but stern now in a way that startles Logan.

He's a little bit cowed by it. “Sorry,” he says. “I just…”

“It's okay, you didn't do anything wrong. You're my good boy,” Wade says before Logan can wonder if he's lost his good boy status. Wade pats his back. “But maybe we need a rule after all. Listen to me, honey. Whenever we play like this, you have absolute veto power, and rules should really just be things you want to do anyway. You understand?”

Logan nods slowly. He feels low down in a trance, put there by the way Wade’s talking about all this, as if it means more than it does.

“Good. You're so smart, baby.” Wade kisses Logan's forehead. “Do you want a rule that says puppies don't talk?”

“Uh…” Logan hesitates, blindsided. “What happens if I break a rule?”

“Nothing happens.” Wade returns one hand to petting Logan's hair, slow and soothing, the other rubbing Logan's back through his shirt. “You’ll always be a good boy, and good boys don't get punished unless they want to. Don't even try to tell me that's what you want, by the way, I know you too well, my little self-destructor.” Wade grins when Logan pouts, found out. “I just think it'll help, ‘cause you torturing yourself at three a.m. won't make anything better. So.” Wade presses his lips to Logan's ear and asks, very softly, “Do puppies talk?”

It's an easy question, one Logan doesn't even have to think about. He shakes his head and hugs Wade more tightly, deeply relieved. He hates talking, doesn't want to do anything but stay right here where Wade is, where it's safe, and pretend everything's alright for a few more hours. Maybe Wade will be enough after all, when the world drops from its orbit and the rest of the universe turns against him.

“Okay, good boy. I thought you'd like that, poor baby, you get yourself so worked up. Don't worry about anything, if you need something I'll know. I'm magic like that.” Wade nuzzles Logan's cheek, then sighs happily there before his mouth starts motoring again. Logan wonders where Wade gets off being so nice to him, because Wade’s still soft where their hips press together. “You're such a good boy, puppy, please don't ever doubt it. Always, everything you do. Like tonight, killing those dickasses? I love massacring guys with you, honey, I don't care if it's fucked up. You're perfect for me, puppy, and I'm gonna take care of you forever, always gonna be here for my good boy.”

This is hitting Logan almost as strongly as that elephant tranq, pulling him from the boiling water in his skull, loosening his fingers on Wade’s shoulders. It clears the ice from his lungs until his airway opens and he can finally breathe again, like it's okay. He's safe.

“That’s right, now you're getting all soft and relaxed for me, just like good puppies should,” Wade coos, and pets Logan's hair, sinking sparks of pleasure down through his scalp. “Puppies don't brood, do they? No, they just lie down and rest, safe and comfy. They get kisses and pets, and so much love. I love you more than anything, baby boy.”

Logan sobs a little with relief, rests his head against Wade’s chest and just breathes, deep and easy. Panic gives way to an exhausted calm, wrung out by Wade’s careful hands.

“Good boy, that's it, you're doing so well, breathing so deep for me. Doesn't that feel good? Poor puppy didn't know he just needed to be held.” Wade tugs the comforter higher up over them, tucking Logan in. “You’ve had a hard day, huh? But it's over now, time for pretty little puppies to go to sleep.”

“No…” It leaves Logan's mouth on a thin exhale, more a whine than a word, not really a breach of the rule. He's changed his mind, he doesn't want to sleep; he'll just have nightmares, then wake to another world that hates him. He clutches at Wade, wishing this reprieve could last forever.

“Aw, don't cry, puppy, I'm here. Shh, I'm right here.” Wade scratches at those spots that make Logan’s eyelids heavy, fingers behind Logan’s ears, thumbs curled over Logan's cheeks. “I’m gonna take care of you, sweetheart, keep you safe. I won't leave you, I'll hold you all night long, and I'll still be right here tomorrow, and the next day and forever. You're my good boy, I love you, I need to be with you always. And I will, puppy, I promise.”

It's the same bullshit again and again, but it's beginning to feel more true than bullshit. It's as if these things are being imprinted on Logan's bones, only gently, not with a blade but a brush moving over him in soft passes until the bristles reshape him. He's good, everything's going to be okay, Wade loves him, and it's safe to rest now, to be weak here under the blankets, in Wade's arms. Logan listens to the drum of Wade’s heart as he drifts off, floating on these tenderly spoken things, tentatively trying to believe them, or at least one: Wade will always be here for him, and that will always be enough.

Logan wakes gently, nuzzling Wade's chest. Everything's warm and bright for a while, sunlight cast in glowing stripes over the bed, through the blinds. Then a hammer comes down on his heart as he remembers the events of last night, and he sits up with renewed panic. Wade is sprawled out beside Logan, snoring open-mouthed with his head turned into the pillow, and Logan wants to shake him awake so they can be the only people in the world again — but the game is over. Logan needs to get up and think. Maybe he can do something to mitigate the damage, at least come up with an excuse for when someone asks, because they will, he knows they will.

With difficulty he pries himself from the bed, pulls on a pair of Wade's sweatpants by way of bringing Wade with him, and stands staring at Wade for too long before he finally manages to leave the bedroom. Mary Puppins meets him in the hallway, bursting out of Al's room to chase his heels.

“Hey, ugly,” he whispers, and bends down to ruffle her funny little afro, her tongue flying out to lick his fingers. He feels a new kinship with her in light of last night, and only a bit of lingering embarrassment. Mostly he's hoping to do it again, soon, itching for another escape as the world expands. It's not just him and Wade, not just their bedroom or the apartment. This place is a bubble, the happiness within fragile and fleeting, frighteningly liable to pop.

Mary Puppins follows him out into the living room, and goes to her bed while he turns on the TV. Gnawing the inside of his cheek, he switches the station to the news. He half expects to see footage of himself with his claws out and the words TRANSEXUAL DEVIANT running across the bottom of the screen in bold letters, an anchor cheerfully instructing Vancouver residents to let Wolverine know how disgusting he is the next time they spot him in public. Instead, there's a young man in a blue, pink and white striped shirt being interviewed on a familiar street corner, grinning behind a microphone.

“— so exciting. We're marching today to celebrate the future and history of the trans community. Because this isn't new! A lot of people don't realize it, but we've been around for a long time, and believe me, we're not going anywhere —”

Logan pauses the station and just stares at the screen for a while, transfixed. That man is like him? And he has the balls to talk on the news about it? With a smile, no less, like he's not terrified.

It's unsettling, and electric. Logan doesn't know how to feel about this proof that Wade and Al could maybe, possibly have been slightly right. Logan's been around a long time, too long, and he's watched a lot of decades with their respective changes come and go, the extinction of top hats, petticoats giving way to T-shirts. But he's never known a time where someone could safely go out in public and admit to being “trans.”

Then again, how would Logan know? He's spent the last thirty years almost constantly drunk; it could've happened while he was too shit-faced to tell the difference between the eighteen nineties and the nineteen nineties. He didn't want to see the world get better, so he wasn't looking. He just wanted to close his eyes and drink until he felt adrift from it.

He's still not comfortable with the idea of labeling himself that way, because it's no one's business and he likes being thought of as a man, period, as opposed to a man who used to be a girl. He was never really a girl at all; he just had the misfortune of looking like one. In one of his oldest memories, he's seven years old and accidentally shredding his father's suit in the process of trying it on, the sleeves hanging down past his knees, pants too loose to stay up around his scrawny waist, claws brought out from the excitement. He stood in front of a mirror like that for hours, imagining the suit fit him, and blamed the mess on the cat.

What was the damn thing's name? Logan's straining to remember, lost in time, when there's a knock at the door, then Mary Puppins’ alarmed yapping. It scares him halfway out of his skin, and he quickly turns off the TV, fumbling the remote. He usually hears visitors the second they enter the building, but he didn't even notice footsteps on the stairs, he was so distracted. He whirls around and sniffs, smells that it's Laura and Yukio out in the hallway, Laura who smells too much like him and Yukio who smells faintly of lightning.

“Fuck,” he mouths, a rapidly deepening pit in his stomach. What must Laura think of him after last night, what he said? His claws shift anxiously, wanting to unsheathe.

He just stands by the door for a while, frozen stiff. Relief comes when he smells heaven and turns to find Wade shuffling into the living room, dressed in his Hello Kitty sweatpants and one of Logan's shirts, knuckling sleep from his eyes. Mary Puppins abandons the door to nip at Wade’s pants.

“Mornin’, sweethearts,” he says, and yawns hugely. “What’s goin’ on, baby boy? Who's at the door?”

Logan rushes to Wade and hugs him fiercely, wondering if he really has been changed by last night. He still feels overly clingy, wants to curl up on Wade's chest again and stay there forever.

“Oop!” Wade seems surprised, but he doesn't tense. He wraps his arms around Logan, hugs him just as tightly. “Someone’s a snuggle bug this morning! Do you still feel icky about —?”

There's another knock, this time more in the way of a punch. “Logan?” Laura calls. “Hello, Wade? It's us!”

Logan flinches and squeezes Wade’s waist, whining into his shoulder.

“Oh,” Wade says. He squeezes Logan back. “Okay, honey, you're gonna be fine, I promise, I'll be right here the whole time. Let's get the door, or else they're just gonna break it down.”

He kisses Logan's cheek and steps away to open the door, Mary Puppins in joyful pursuit, Logan trailing sullenly behind them. He wishes he could pause time, take a minute to draft a suitable apology. He's an asshole for what he said, plain and simple; he just wants Laura to understand he's not the man who died for her. He doesn't deserve that quiet admiration in her eyes.

Wade turns the lock, unfastens the chain and pulls open the door to reveal a beaming Yukio and a visibly pissed Laura.

Yukio steps inside. “Hi, Wade!”

“Hi, Yukio!” He waves. “Ooh, love the blue eyeshadow! What are you two rugrats up to today?”

Laura storms past them, face set into a look of steely resolve as she prowls in a straight line toward Logan. Logan freezes again, deer-like, wanting to either dive under the couch to hide or jump into Wade’s arms for protection. He's aware of how pathetic this is, but Laura terrifies him worse than some of the maniacs he's fought. She looks just like that girl in the mirror two hundred years ago, who he dreaded seeing, but there's a paradox about her, because he also thinks she's beautiful, brilliant and graceful. And very lethal-looking, charging at him, though she's half his size.

She stops in front of him, and just takes a breath when he expects her to stab him. “Hey,” she says, a begrudging twist to her mouth. “Look, I don't want you to feel responsible for me. I get it, you don't owe me shit, you're not my father — but you look just like him. You sound like him. Sometimes I slip up, so. Sorry.” She spits out a bitter laugh; he hears himself in it. “Mierda. I didn't mean to freak you out that bad.”

She's apologizing to him. She thinks it was her fault, that he was so disgusted by her it knocked him over, exactly the kind of self-loathing assumption he would make. It's so wrong, and he needs to reassure her. He glances at Wade, who's watching from the sidelines alongside Yukio, Wade smiling encouragingly and Yukio just looking happy the way she usually does. That's reassuring, too.

Wade’s here, everything's okay, nothing bad can happen when they're together…

Logan breathes, believing this. “No, I'm the one who's sorry. I shouldn't have said what I said, I was way out of line. I care about you, alright? ‘Cause even if I'm not your father, I still kind of am. All this alternate universe shit is so confusing, I don't know, just. I'm a dick for snapping at you like that, it wasn't your fault, it had nothing to do with you.”

Laura tilts her head, narrows her eyes. She doesn't quite look reassured. “What was it, then?” she asks. “Was it the dogs in the cages? Seeing them made you…?”

It's as if she's speaking from experience, like she's been in a cage, too. It hurts Logan to consider that, but it feels right, and he realizes how much alike they really are. And he sees how much better than him Laura is, her compassion and concern in the fact that she came here to apologize instead of rightfully telling him to fuck off.

Whatever happened to her, it wasn't enough to crush her the way Logan’s life crushed him, snuffed out his kindness and made him cruel. She was too strong for that.

He feels a shockwave surge of affection for her, something hot in his chest and heavy on the tip of his tongue. He hesitates when he remembers Yukio's listening, but only briefly. She's a member of their weird, cobbled-together family, and Wade trusts her; that's good enough for Logan.

“Well. I, uh. Laura.” Logan clears his throat of apprehension. He feels Wade and Yukio watching, knows Wade is probably smiling softly, but he's only talking to Laura now, meeting her eyes and letting her be his whole world. “I was born — I didn't used to be, um. A man. Because I… Do you understand?” He watches the gears in her head turn and waits for her to nod, her eyes wide. “Good, okay. So, part of why it's difficult for me to be around you is that you remind me of myself before I… But that's not your fault, that's fucking ridiculous and I've gotta get over it, ‘cause I like being around you. You're a great kid, you're perfect, don't ever let anyone tell you different.

“But, uh. I guess it spooked me when you said our foot claws are a gender thing, ‘cause. Yeah. I'm sorry for saying that shit, and for worrying you. And your friend.”

He shuts his mouth. Silence descends over the apartment, all eyes on him, Laura's huge with surprise. He looks down at the floor and waits, hands curled into fists, claw-tips poking between his knuckles as his breath comes faster. The ones on his feet are halfway out already. He's trying to believe he's safe, that she won't hate him, repeating Wade’s promises in his head: Good boy, good boy…

“Thank you,” Laura says finally, and she's smiling when he snaps his head up to look at her. “It can't have been easy trusting me with that. Thank you.” She steps forward, arms outstretched as if to hug him, but he flinches back. He doesn't mean to, his body just doesn't want to be touched. She drops her hands, face falling.

“Gosh, y'all are so sweet, working on your relationship!” Wade swoops in to dispel the awkward moment that follows, beaming and throwing his arm around Logan's shoulders. Logan leans heavily into Wade, glad for the crutch, having been a second away from keeling over. Wade’s touch is the exception. “I love and support you both with all my heart. But emotional growth is hungry work! Who wants French toast? I found this recipe that uses cinnamon, how fancy is that? Any takers?”

“Me!” Yukio says when Logan can't bring himself to speak and Laura can't seem to either.

Logan opts to sit on the couch while the girls assist Wade in the kitchen, needing a break, a chance to absorb. He listens to Wade’s babbling commentary through the wall, Yukio's giggling, Mary Puppins' accomplished little whines that indicate someone just slipped her a taste. Laura chimes in occasionally, soft-spoken and sensible, to discourage Wade from putting glitter in the egg wash and sprinkling the pan with baking soda.

She's such a good kid, and Logan's kicking himself for not hugging her, for making himself look so weak, like a frail, damaged thing that can't be touched without shattering completely. He was shocked by the easy understanding he found in her eyes. She didn't need further explanation; she just seemed to get it, nothing like the students that day forty years ago, universes away. Yukio, too.

Is it really that common nowadays, that kids don't blink twice?

He perks his head up when Yukio comes skipping in from the kitchen, smiling with her usual serenity. She sits beside him on the couch, ponytail bouncing, and turns to give him an excited little wave. “Hi, Logan!”

Her innocent joy is endearing, and infectious, so Logan quirks his mouth and lifts his hand. “Hey, kid. What's up, you need a break from watching Wade wreck the kitchen?” It's comforting to say Wade's name, knowing Wade’s only a shout away, in the next room shushing Laura, whispering that they can't wake Al with anything less than the best-smelling French toast in the world. Logan smiles properly at that; it smells alright now, but Wade burns regular toast.

“He's doing a great job,” Yukio says brightly. She graciously withholds any comments about the state of the kitchen.

“Yeah, I bet.” Logan snorts. He's not extremely close to Yukio, her being a teenage girl, but he feels protective of her the same way he does her girlfriend. And Laura.

They bring out the side of him that once gave halting history lectures at the school, these misfit kids who obviously have nowhere else to go. They show up with the rest of Wade’s friends every Friday, just to eat junk and sit around the apartment together, talking about nothing in particular. Logan hasn't been here a year yet, but he's come to think of this arrangement as permanent, his place among Wade’s makeshift family solidified. That would make Yukio his niece or something.

“I want you to know I'm here if you ever need to talk,” Yukio says after a comfortable pause. Her presence invites those. “I know that feeling, when you're not sure if the person you're coming out to will accept you. It's like falling, isn't it, taking a leap of faith? You're very brave, and I'm so proud of you! I won't touch you, but know that in my heart I'm giving you a gentle side-hug.”

“Thanks?” Logan frowns, confused. “Oh,” he says. “‘Cause of your girlfriend. Anyone ever gives you shit about that, you just tell me and I'll straighten ‘em out for you.”

Yukio giggles. “No! Well, yes, but that's not what I meant. I'm trans, too, surprise!” She beams like she's proud of this, like there's nothing to fear in announcing it.

Logan drops his jaw, stunned more than anything by how happy-go-lucky she is all the time. She's such a bright, sunshiny kid, he never would've thought there was anything… He stops himself from thinking “wrong with her,” because there's nothing wrong with her. It's just bitten so deep into his bones that there's something horribly wrong with him, since the first time his bones shot out his knuckles, the first time he saw his reflection and thought, That's not me.

“I had no idea,” he says dumbly.

“You're actually only the third person I've told. Not because it's a big secret or anything, I love our family and I'll tell everyone eventually. I just like to let it happen naturally. Like this!” She gestures between them, grinning. “The first was Ellie, of course, and then Laura. She's the best! She talks about you all the time, it's adorable.”

For the sake of his sanity, Logan chooses not to dwell on the thought of Laura talking about him. “Ellie?” he asks.

“NTW!” Yukio laughs.

“Oh, shit.” He's kind of appalled at himself for not knowing NTW’s civilian name. He just tends not to think in terms of “real names,” prefers to go by whatever a person first introduced themselves as, which in his experience is usually their superhero alias. He's also reeling from this bombshell, feeling like he tripped over an IED.

He's never met another person like him, not that he knows of, and it's a visceral connection. Validating. Especially because Yukio makes it seem so normal. It reminds him of the first time he crossed paths with another mutant, how sane and seen he felt in that moment. How much he loved those brief months at the school, because for a while he knew he wasn't alone. He didn't have to hide his claws, though he still had other secrets to keep. Charles gave lectures on the beauty of being a mutant, the ways in which it made them superior, special. It was a community. Logan had friends in the other professors, he had Jean, and the kids were all pretty sweet under their scars.

Logan doesn't like to think about it, his memories of that period spoiled by how badly it ended, but he really was happy there. There was a time when he wanted to stay forever.

He feels that way now, not alone, though he hasn't been truly alone in eight months. Yukio is soothing a different, secret loneliness, one even Wade can't reach, a shadow Logan didn't realize he was carrying. She's just a kid, he thinks, overcome with respect, but she's so much braver than he'll ever be, sitting here baring her soul, that calm smile on her face, like she's invincible.

Thinking of how Laura responded to his soul-baring, he says quietly, “Thank you.”

Yukio beams and leans over, nudges her shoulder to his. He's wanting to take her up on that side-hug when Wade emerges from the kitchen with pink, smile-stretched cheeks and a full-body dusting of cinnamon.

“Breakfast is served!” he declares. “Come and get it while the getting's good. It's literally perfect, thanks to my awesome sous chef.”

Laura stands behind him, not quite as cinnamon-coated, looking like the long-suffering babysitter to his crazed toddler, probably solely responsible for the lack of explosions. She meets Logan's eyes, and Logan holds her gaze without flinching. He smiles at her until she smiles back.

Al's door creaks open. “What’s that smell?” she calls. Mary Puppins races out of the kitchen and down the hall as if to escort Al to the table, whining happily.

“Breakfast!” Wade says. “Al, come quick, you'll never believe it! I actually made something edible!”

Yukio springs up to join the others in the kitchen, and Logan follows, feeling light and warm everywhere, unable to wipe the smile off his face. He's home, surrounded by family, their smells and voices, and so safe he can't believe it. Except he does. He's never been this welcome anywhere, not even at the school. That was all just unknowing practice, like Wade said, for when he finally found his real family.

He sits between Wade and Laura at the table, and focuses less on eating the surprisingly decent French toast than committing this morning to memory. He takes it all in greedily, every erratic change of subject, the shapes of everyone's smiles, so he can revisit it the next time he feels hopeless. In two hundred years when all but three of them are gone — because nothing can be held so tightly as to ward off time, he knows that better than most — he'll remember the fumbling but determined way Al saws through her toast. He'll remember the weightless way Yukio giggles at even the dumbest of Wade's jokes. He'll remember the warm, searching way Laura glances at him every so often. He'll remember how gently Wade holds his hand under the table.

After the dishes have been washed, Wade insists on walking the girls downstairs, countering Laura's protests by saying, “What if creepy old Montgomery is hanging around the mailboxes again?” There's actually nothing creepy about Mr. Montgomery, or else Logan would've taken care of him before Laura ever set foot in the building. He just has a face more badly scarred than Wade’s and claims to see the future, which can be off-putting.

Wade whisks Yukio out the door, babbling about Vegas, for some reason, while Laura lingers in the foyer to shrug on her jacket. Al sits in her chair, some game show droning on TV, and the background noise gives Logan the courage required to enact the plan he came up with during dessert, candy from the stash Wade keeps in their broken dishwasher. The sugar rush helps, too.

“Uh, hey. Hold on,” he says, coming to stand in front of her. The door's open, and it feels like a sideways sinkhole, threatening to suction her away from him.

She looks up, and smiles the same crooked half-smile he wears all the time. “Yeah?”

Logan doesn't know what the hell he's doing, but his first apology didn't feel like enough, and all he can think about is the face she made when he flinched back from her. “I meant it when I said I like having you around.” He breaks off for a second, sighing. “I’m sorry I'm not your father. I know it's hard for you, ‘cause I look like him, but it's better this way, kid. It really is. I suck at this, I'm —”

“No.” Laura's eyes go wide, as if he's holding a grenade. “Don't say that.”

He gets the sense he's struck a nerve, only he has no idea where. This must be how Wade feels when he defuses Logan's landmines without Logan ever telling him what they are or where they came from.

“Okay. Sorry,” he says. “I just don't want you to think I don't care about you. I do, you're great. You're — strong. I wish I was as strong as you when I was your age. I'm. Proud. Of you. Um. You did real good last night, killing those assholes.”

Laura's alarm melts off her face. She smiles faintly, far too wistful for a nineteen-year-old. “There's no living with a killing,” she says, prayer-like under her breath.

It baffles him at first, but he grins when he places it. “Oh, hey. Shane,” he says. “‘Right or wrong, it's a brand, a brand sticks.’ You like cowboys, kid? I saw that one when it was in the theaters — Oof!”

He staggers back a step when she launches herself at him, hugging him so tight his ribs ache. Her legs wrap knot-like around his waist, her arms clutch his shoulders, her face shoved into his neck. “Eres tú, eres realmente tú,” she's crying. “Volviste.”

It's rapid-fire Spanish, and he has no idea what she's saying, except he kind of does, gleans it from the desperation in her voice: she needs him. The tension drains from him, and he hugs her back, squeezes his missing piece against him, buries his face in her hair and just breathes her scent. She smells marked by him, like someone he was made to protect, someone who should always be wrapped up safe in his arms. They're the only people in the world now, and all he hears is her heart.

“Okay, kid.” His voice is wrecked. He kisses her head, feels her sniffing him back, her nose behind his ear. He wonders if he smells as good to her as she does to him. “Okay, I'm here. I — I'm here, I have you.”

And if some fucked-up part of him sees her as his past self, he embraces her, too, that girl, that boy who had the odds so stacked against him from the very beginning. Who had no way of knowing everything would fall into place the way it has.

They didn't deserve to be hated, to be hurt and cast out — they should’ve been helped.

“Laura.” He can't stop kissing her, stroking her hair, clutching her closer. He wants her inside his chest. “Laura, Laura, Laura.”

“Daddy,” she calls him, whispering right over his ear, so quiet no one else could ever hear it. But he does. He hears it like a bullet through the brain, that shaky echo from a past Logan wishes he was here for, his little girl who needed him. She might've been kept in a cage before another version of himself saved her, however that happened. She doesn't talk about it. Logan tasted bile when Wade said that word last night, but it feels more right in Laura's voice, his calling, the thing he was waiting his whole life to hear. It changes everything.

He can't let her go, not ever again, not for a second. “I don't want you to leave,” he says, muffled with his face in her hair. “I want you here with me, tell me it's not too late —”

“It's not.” She sniffles, and tugs where her fingers grip the back of his shirt. “I won't leave, I can't. I'll call Yukio and tell her I'm sleeping here tonight.”

“And tomorrow night,” he says, pleading. If not, he'll leave with her and sleep at the mansion, on the floor if he has to, vow never to return be damned. Wade will understand. She's so much bigger than any promise Logan's ever made.

Laura nods, sobbing into his shoulder. And forever, she doesn't say, but he feels that she wants to. It's floating unsaid all around them, soft chains binding them together. He doesn't know where she'll sleep, how they'll make it work, but they will, they have to. He won't survive another day without her here.

Al chuckles, and it startles him, tenses him up under Laura's hands; he forgot Al was there. “You okay with the couch, honey?” she asks gently. “It's a pull-out.”

“Anywhere, I don't care.” She rubs their cheeks together, Logan's instincts preening. “Just don't push me away again.”

“Never!” he growls. He hugs her more tightly, rocks her back and forth, taking just enough care not to crush her. She's his puppy, he thinks, near delirious.

She whimpers, clutches him hard, and he hears the relief in it, the “finally.” “I — I should call Yukio,” she says. “Her and Wade. They're waiting downstairs.”

But neither of them let go, latched onto each other like she's forgotten how to stand, like he's forgotten how to put her down. “I know, I'm sorry.” He's not, not for this. “I can't let go, baby, I can't, I'm sorry.”

“I don't want you to.” She's crying in earnest now, face sticky against his neck. Tears roll down his cheeks, too, for the first time in years.

So he doesn't. He convinced himself he didn't want this, because he could never bear the process of having a kid of his own, but here she is, breathing and beautiful and his. He's so grateful that other version of himself was there when she needed him, but now it's his turn to be her father, and he has so much catching up to do. It starts right here, the forever they'll spend together. The three of them. He listens to Wade’s voice downstairs, wondering aloud what's taking so long, and Yukio suggesting they go back up to check on Laura. He'll reel them into the hug when they get here, and Al, but for now there's only Laura Laura Laura. His baby, his daughter. She fills his senses, floods his lonely corners with light. She's all hope and a strong heartbeat.

He holds her for a long time.