Once Upon a Time in Madripoor (Scott & Logan, for hotelmontana)
Title: Once Upon A Time In Madripoor
Author: st_aurafina
Rating: PG for manly brawling
Characters: Scott and Logan, Mystique and various Brotherhood
Recipient: hotelmontana
Request: I'd like a bromance. Lots of hoyay and UST, but no smut. Also, no kissing. Or crying.
Note: Set after the events of X3. Madripoor is a Marvel Comic creation, an island nation in South East Asia. Thank you to lilacsigil and silver_apples for beta-reading.
There was something fascinating about the way that Summers slammed that cleaver down on the chopping block, the way the metal edge swung down with a satisfying meaty thud, the smooth movement of the large flat blade as the fish head was swept into a bucket with brisk efficiency. Logan realised he was staring, and tilted his head up to the sky and tuned out the sounds of the fish market. Somewhere across the water, he could hear the repeating clatter of a rivet gun, catch a whiff of acetylene over the acrid smell of fish guts - over on Alcatraz, and around the broken stumps of pylons in the bay, people were piecing their world back together. This was the first time Logan had gone to see Summers - he had thrown himself into the process of getting the school ready for the next academic year. He preferred to leave the hand-holding mostly to Ororo and McCoy - he had better things to do than to wipe Summers' nose while the man moped around the places where Jean had died.
It wasn't that he didn't get it, the whole mourning thing, the need to get away. He'd done it himself. He couldn't remember much - the names and faces were long gone, but the resonant memories were familiar enough. When they'd found Scott blundering around the waterline at Alkali Lake, powerless and malnourished, Logan understood the man's desperation for something normal, something everyday. But that was months ago - things were being rebuilt around the bay, around the country and at the school. It irked Logan that while everyone he knew was working their guts out Summers kept his head down and his hands busy and congratulated himself on being a tip-top functional person. He scuffed his feet at a stray cat lurking with him beside this brick wall sluiced with scent from every tomcat and every drunk in San Francisco. This kind of grief, the kind that set like concrete and never changed, it smelled worse than old piss and fish in the sun.
"Are you supposed to be hiding over there?" Scott swept the last fish head into the bucket, and threw the cleaned fish onto a tray of ice. "Or are you just being coy?" He rubbed his hands clean on his apron; the skin was raw and red from the salt water; Logan thought that if it were quiet enough, he would almost be able to hear tiny cracks opening across the knuckles as those hands flexed.
"If I was hiding, you wouldn't see me till too late," Logan stuffed his hands in his pockets, uncomfortable with the frank gaze from Scott's unvisored face - he still flinched, anticipating the impact of force beams that never came. "Ororo sent me. Got a mission for you."
Summers shouldered the tray of fresh fish. "How many times do I have to tell you and Ororo that I'm not on the team anymore?" He kicked a screen door open with his boot; Logan could hear the squall of the indoorfish market. Summers paused on the threshold. "I'm fine. I don't need saving."
"Oh, yeah, it's all about you." Logan narrowed his eyes. "And not because we might need a hand with something." He watched colour flood in the man's face, and smiled at the scent of guilt. Gotcha.
The screen door slammed shut, and Logan waited with the cats and the fish heads, listening to Summers tidying things around the storeroom with unnecessary force. The man reappeared at the door with a baseball cap and a battered leather jacket, wreathed in the stale paper smell of resignation. "Okay. Tell me about it."
Summers' apartment was frugally furnished but it did have a fridge, and Logan saw it as a positive sign that this fridge was stocked with beer. They sat at the wobbly table in the kitchenette and Logan spread the files across the scarred plywood surface. Scott took a sip from his bottle and flipped through the papers.
"Kitty's trawling some website or other, and she finds a site that's advertising a cure for the Cure. Kids are spreading the word on the internet; if you were forced to take the Cure, here's a way to get your powers back." He frowned -the internet was a mysterious abstract to Logan, despite what the kids told him.
Scott raised an eyebrow. "You flew out here to consult on a snake-oil salesman? It's a con, to get money out of rich kids whose parents paid to get rid of their powers."
"Nah, that's the weird thing. They actually give you the money to fly out of the States, to get the treatment in Asia." Logan pointed his finger at Scott. "Can you think of anyone who might be interested in reversing the Cure and recruiting an army of grateful soldiers?"
Scott put his bottle down carefully. "You think Magneto has something to do with this?" He had that far-away expression that said he was putting pieces together in his head, and Logan felt more optimistic about this visit.
Logan shrugged. "Who knows? His plans do have that wacky quality we've all come to love. Anyway, whoever is behind it, they're not doing good - teenagers shouldn't be roaming around Madripoor on their own. It ain't the most wholesome of places. That's why we want you to go undercover, pretend you're looking to buy this cure."
"What good would I be undercover? If it's Magneto, he knows my face." Scott was sceptical.
Logan shrugged. "You don't have powers. And Magneto knows you well enough. I reckon he'd believe you were stupid enough to take the Cure." He raised his bottle to Summers, then took a long pull, swallowing with a satisfied sigh. "We want this to look as realistic as possible."
Outside the arctic cavern that was the main terminal of Madripoor International Airport, the air was slick and humid, and carried sounds and smells that tickled the back of Logan’s mind with infuriating familiarity. He stiffened his shoulders, and turned a full circle. The skyline was crammed with gleaming skyscrapers, but there was something about the curve of narrow roads around the harbour that he remembered. Summers, meanwhile, had finally finished changing his cash over and headed for the taxi stand still tucking his wallet away as he walked. The obsequious smiles of the waiting drivers widened and the lead driver - a skinny man in a stained shirt - hurried obligingly to open the trunk of his cab. Logan caught Summers by the neck, and steered him away.
"They’re looking for the rubes. Try not to act like one." He steered him towards the pedal-powered rickshaws parked haphazardly at the front of the parking garage. "Well, you know, just do the best you can."
With a smooth gesture, Summers pulled the hand from his neck and pressed it against the small of Logan’s back, leaning in close so that nobody could see the vicious little twist he put on the joint.
"Don’t patronise me. I know how to take care of myself." He released Logan's arm, and slung his bag into the carriage of the pedicab. Logan gave a grunt of surprise, but scrambled up onto the vinyl seat. The suspension on the mismatched wheels squealed in protest under his weight, and alarming twanging noises came from the undercarriage. The pedicab driver looked at him with a baleful expression, and Logan grimaced
"I guess we're walking, Summers." He slipped off the seat again, and reached out a hand for Summers' bag.
"Guess again." Summers flipped a few small coins to the driver and the pedicab driver scrambled onto the saddle of his bike. "See you tonight, Logan." Moving with jerky lurches at first, the cab was quickly trundling away at a good pace. Logan watched it disappear into the raucous traffic. From over the sounds of the city he could hear Summers' voice floating back.
"And find something to wear or you won't get into the club!"
Logan frowned, calculated the distance and angle to hit right between those smug shoulder blades with a small but painful rock, then hoisted his bag over his shoulder and slipped into the traffic on foot. He followed half-remembered paths that led him away from the skyscrapers and department stores, past tumbledown shrines and old wooden fences plastered and replastered with ads and posters. He bought a clean t-shirt from a man selling out of the back of his truck, parked in the rubble of a tumble-down church. Sometimes the crooked path he was following would take an unexpected turn and end facing the wall of an apartment block or the fence of a highway overpass, and he'd curse, and cast around for something else familiar. Had he spent so long at Westchester that he had forgotten what it was to chase a lost memory like this? Was it such a bad thing to forget? His thrust his hands into his pockets as he walked, thinking of the kids and the team, and how hard they had all worked to put the school back together after Alcatraz. No, that wasn't a bad thing. Summers should think hard about what he was walking away from, and if it was worth the indulgence of his personal grief.
At the club, Logan closed his eyes for a moment as waves of sound broke against his body, taking a moment to equilibrate before he pushed through the crowd to find Summers. Enhanced senses were not an advantage in a sweaty warehouse over-stuffed with kids oozing fear and lust and chemicals through their pores. He kept to the edge of the mass of bodies that jumped and twitched in unison on the strobing plexiglass platform, looking for a place where he could better scan the crowd for the top of Summers' head. The guy should be sticking out like a sore thumb in this crowd, but so far Logan hadn't seen anything, and he couldn't rely on his hearing or sense of smell in this barn. He staked his position close to the stairs, in the shadows cast by the over-hanging walkways and twisted cables - back here, nobody paid him much attention, all eyes were turned towards the roof. If you had the right genes, the place to be was above the dance floor, by any means possible - kids clung to the wires with tails and tentacles, hovered in the air on membranous wings, swept over the hoi polloi on a river of light. Only one person on the dance floor seemed unimpressed with the circus going on above; a girl, barely pubescent, with white hair that glowed under the changing lights. There was something strange about the way she moved, swaying back and forth, watching the movement of her own hands through the air. Logan eased his way through the crowd towards her - there was something oddly familiar about her scent. Something volatile hung about her mouth and nose, and the smell of it made Logan's hearing buzz and his vision blur. He shook his head to clear the interference, and opened his eyes into someone's fist, which hammered down on his face at super-speed. Bone grated against bone somewhere low on his skull, and as red-tinged darkness flooded in, he saw unkempt silver hair before his eyes, and cursed Summers for not watching his back. When he smelled Summers' blood on the man's knuckles, he cursed himself for not watching Scott.
The dull thudding in his head receded to the steady bass thump of the nightclub, some distance away now. He kept his eyes closed, and stilled his body after the initial jerk of awakening; someone was pressed up against his back, their hands intertwined with his, bound with thick rope. He opened his mouth to taste the scent - sea-salt and pressed chinos - that would be Summers. Logan breathed out slowly, feeling the tension in the other man's back as he pressed against it - Summers was conscious too, his muscles bunching and tight, his breathing raspy. Blood dripped rhythmically onto a clean shirt he had probably pressed himself. Logan tentatively slid out one claw to sever the rope that bound them together, but Summers opened his hand over the top of the blade, forcing him to stop, or cut through the man's palm. Logan twitched his shoulder in agitation and Summers tilted his head ever so slightly towards the centre of the room. A woman stood there, tall and lean, in the path of the stream of fresh air that poured in from under the door. She shifted gently from foot to foot, a deliberate action, it allowed something silken underneath the good wool suit to slide enticingly over her legs, something he guessed she knew only he could hear. Her perfume smelled expensive, even to Logan's uneducated nose.
"I know you're awake, Logan." The voice was dry and low, and triggered a sense memory of muscles that shifted under the skin like a snake. Mystique had not been seen since her disputed turn as informant on the Brotherhood; after Alcatraz she had slipped away from the government holding facility as easily as if she had never lost her powers. Logan wasn't surprised - she might be trapped in a single form, but Mystique would never be stupid enough to rely on just one extraordinary ability.
"I'm not going to waste my time or yours - I know that rope isn't going to hold either of you for long. You're not the only one expecting Erik to show up here." Logan heard a cellphone inside her jacket buzzing briefly until she slipped a hand inside to silence it. "I'm quite happy to hand him over to you, once he and I have had a little chat. I'm sure you've got some words you'd like to share. But consider this a friendly warning: I'm the expert here, and it goes down my way. Stay away from the club. Stay away from Quicksilver and his little brat." She turned with a final flare of silk on skin. and opened the door, pausing with her hand brushing against the steel handle. "I'm not locking the door, so don't bust the place up when you go." The door closed with a soft click, and Logan could hear her walking briskly across a concrete floor, talking softly into her cellphone.
They both waited silently, tense in the empty room, the walls shaking slightly with the beat from the nightclub. When Logan could no longer hear Mystique's footsteps, he extended one claw slowly, allowing Summers time to move his fingers out of the way. Logan leaned the edge against the rope, and let his body weight cut through the fibres. Nice and slow - nobody needed to lose a digit.
Summer's bloody nose dripped in and out of time with the faraway music. "Mystique seems to have done well for herself." His voice was a little thick, and there was blood in his mouth.
Logan snorted. "Did you ever doubt she wouldn't? She knew how to make this take as long as possible so she'd have time to get away." The rope twisted as it split against his claw, and the edge brushed against the skin on Summers' wrist, leaving behind it a thin line of welling blood. "Dammit. Sorry."
"It's nothing." Summers gave an ironic laugh. "And for future reference, it's down the road, not across the street."
"That's not funny." Logan shifted his weight around so that he could get a better angle on the rope. "You wouldn't be making a joke about that if you gave a damn about the people you'd be leaving behind."
"Nice to know you care, Logan." Summers' voice was dry and cold and he hunched his shoulders miserably, as though he couldn't bear the contact between their backs. The movement jerked the remaining fibres of the rope binding them out of Logan's reach. With an exasperated exhalation, Logan pulled his claw back with a swift click, and heaved hard against the rope, pushing back against Summers' body, tipping them both sideways with a thud. The air rushed out of Summers' chest, and as Logan found purchase against the wall, he felt the rope snap under his bodyweight. He was on his feet before Summers could catch his breath, and he pressed his boot on the man's chest just hard enough to stop him reinflating his lungs.
"You think I care? You want to eat a gun, or jump under a train, I'd say go for it. Please. This self-indulgent shit you're pulling makes me want to kill you myself. You know why I don't?"
Summers, his face a mottled purple, gasped for air, and wrapped his arm around Logan's leg, trying to pull him to the ground. Logan leaned harder, listening to the ribs creak. "I don't, because I've seen Ororo trying to hold it all together back home. And Henry, trying to be in three places at once, covering your spot on the team. And the kids putting on uniforms when they should be finishing school, all of them trying to be you. And even though you're going to say they'd all be better off without you, it's you they need." He stepped off, and walked to the door while Summers rolled on the floor, coughing. "And after everything that's happened, I don't want them to have to do without the thing they want."
"Sure sounds like you care to me." Summers had one knee under him, and one arm wrapped around his ribs, holding them still. He looked up at Logan with that disturbingly frank unshielded gaze. Logan wondered if seeing those eyes made it harder to assume Scott was by default an asshole. The thought was troubling.
"I have to punch something." He clenched his fist. "And satisfying as it would be to punch you, I reckon we'd better get back to Mystique's club."
Summers eased himself upright, shrugged his way out of his bloodied shirt, and used it to wipe the rest of the blood of his face. Then he balled it up, and thew it into the corner with a decisive gesture. "All right. Let's go."
It was a satisfying hour or so of violence, and Logan lost himself in it effortlessly. Mystique had evidently spent time and resources collecting former members of the Brotherhood, those with powers and those who had them taken by the Cure at Alcatraz. Once the fight was in full swing, Logan caught a glimpse of someone who could only be Quicksilver, moving in a blur, his daughter tucked under his arm, her limbs flailing, then he was distracted by an super-sized dough-boy who took a running jump at him from one of the walkways. Over by the bar, Summers had prised off the Juggernaut's helmet, and was clinging to his back, his arm crooked tight around the man's throat. It was joyous: balls of energy zooming around the room, laser beams and psychic blades flashing, glass breaking and punches flying. At least half of the room were fighting each other for no reason other than having something to do, and when the electricity finally went out and the sirens could be heard outside the club, the fight was deemed to be over. People leaned against the walls, and lolled on the dance floor, panting and bleeding, some fled and some ran out to plead innocence with the police. Logan found Scott by the shattered fish tank, scooping up flopping goldfish, and putting them in a miraculously unbroken vase.
"Good fight." Logan had lost his bolo tie, and his shirt was torn.
Scott's arm was covered in yellow paint and he had a rapidly swelling shiner. "I think we did some good here."
Mystique was at the front door, stepping delicately over broken glass, and haranguing a confused looking detective in perfect Malay, the very image of a high-powered business woman. When the detective had been suitably subdued, she picked her way across to where the two men stood.
"You meat-heads, what the hell is this?" She crossed her arms. "I've been baiting this trap for months to flush Erik out, and now he's going to stay as far away as he can."
Scott cradled the vase full of goldfish. "You've been luring kids over here for months, do you care about them? Or whatever the hell this cure is that you've been pumping into them?"
Logan extracted an unbroken bottle of bourbon from behind the bar, and wiped a glass clean on his pants. He poured two fingers into the glass, and handed it to Summers, then swigged from the bottle. "Actually, all I smelled in the club was ecstasy and that stuff dentists use. I don't think this Quicksilver was selling anything special."
Mystique looked sour, and held up the palm of her hand; the skin was mottled bruise-blue. "There is no need to reverse the Cure, it reverses by itself. Hence my limited time-frame - Erik's going to make the same discovery I did, and soon."
Scott swallowed his bourbon. "Magneto plays chess in Mission Park, San Francisco, on Thursdays and Sundays. You probably shouldn't have advertised this place on the internet, he's not exactly in that demographic."
"The Cure isn't permanent? And you didn't tell anyone?" Logan thought of the students who had taken the Cure, willingly or otherwise, and felt his enthusiasm for brawling fade away. "Come on, Summers. We need to go home."
Summers put the glass on the bar, and handed the vase of fish to Mystique. "Best not to overstay our welcome."
On the flight home, Logan propped his hat over his eyes, and tried to doze, even though it was a fruitless effort: the person ahead of him insisted on constantly reclining their chair and it knocked against his knees. Beside him, Summers was reading the complimentary magazine, like he was interested in resort getaways or fine gemstones. He licked his finger before he turned each page.
"Do you know how many people have read that magazine?" Logan said, from under his hat. "I know, and I can tell you that one of them didn't wash after the bathroom."
Scott tucked the magazine away neatly in the seat pocket. "You must be so much fun at restaurants."
"I embrace the fast-food philosophy. Magneto was in San Fran, all this time?"
Scott nodded. "I caught sight of him at the market, and followed him."
"So, what? You took a flight to Madripoor because you really love airline food? All those neat little packets of peanuts?" The chair in front of him slid back so far, the head cushion brushed the brim of Logan's hat. He thought about popping a claw through the foam.
Scott leaned his head back against the seat. "It was time for a change. And someone was up to something, even if I knew it wasn't Magneto. He's keeping a low profile. Doesn't even have the phone hooked up."
"Can't blame him, with Mystique on his tail." Logan finally thrust his knee hard into the back of the chair in front of him. After a moment, the seat moved forward and remained there. "So, you're done with finding yourself now? Going to stop gutting fish, and come home?"
"It wasn't about that." Scott brushed absently at invisible lint on his pants. "When the ship goes down, you cling to the wreckage for a while, just to make sure you're alive."
Logan reached out with a finger and poked the purpling bruise around Scott's eye. "This tells you you're alive."
Scott winced. "For you, maybe. I didn't feel so much then."
Logan could believe it. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, thinking about the expression on Scott's face when they found him at Alkali Lake. "Is this great explanation going somewhere, or should I just rip a hole in your shirt so we can both gaze at your navel together?"
"So, you cling to the wreckage for a while. Then one day, you build a raft." Scott's hands rested on his legs, fingers outstretched and still.
"You build a raft?" Logan could feel sleep hovering somewhere just out of reach. He stretched out his legs and let it come.
"Yeah," Scott's breathing slowed too - the evening's exertion had taken a toll on him. It was going to be a blast getting him back into fighting shape. "You build a raft, and then you sail it home."
Author: st_aurafina
Rating: PG for manly brawling
Characters: Scott and Logan, Mystique and various Brotherhood
Recipient: hotelmontana
Request: I'd like a bromance. Lots of hoyay and UST, but no smut. Also, no kissing. Or crying.
Note: Set after the events of X3. Madripoor is a Marvel Comic creation, an island nation in South East Asia. Thank you to lilacsigil and silver_apples for beta-reading.
There was something fascinating about the way that Summers slammed that cleaver down on the chopping block, the way the metal edge swung down with a satisfying meaty thud, the smooth movement of the large flat blade as the fish head was swept into a bucket with brisk efficiency. Logan realised he was staring, and tilted his head up to the sky and tuned out the sounds of the fish market. Somewhere across the water, he could hear the repeating clatter of a rivet gun, catch a whiff of acetylene over the acrid smell of fish guts - over on Alcatraz, and around the broken stumps of pylons in the bay, people were piecing their world back together. This was the first time Logan had gone to see Summers - he had thrown himself into the process of getting the school ready for the next academic year. He preferred to leave the hand-holding mostly to Ororo and McCoy - he had better things to do than to wipe Summers' nose while the man moped around the places where Jean had died.
It wasn't that he didn't get it, the whole mourning thing, the need to get away. He'd done it himself. He couldn't remember much - the names and faces were long gone, but the resonant memories were familiar enough. When they'd found Scott blundering around the waterline at Alkali Lake, powerless and malnourished, Logan understood the man's desperation for something normal, something everyday. But that was months ago - things were being rebuilt around the bay, around the country and at the school. It irked Logan that while everyone he knew was working their guts out Summers kept his head down and his hands busy and congratulated himself on being a tip-top functional person. He scuffed his feet at a stray cat lurking with him beside this brick wall sluiced with scent from every tomcat and every drunk in San Francisco. This kind of grief, the kind that set like concrete and never changed, it smelled worse than old piss and fish in the sun.
"Are you supposed to be hiding over there?" Scott swept the last fish head into the bucket, and threw the cleaned fish onto a tray of ice. "Or are you just being coy?" He rubbed his hands clean on his apron; the skin was raw and red from the salt water; Logan thought that if it were quiet enough, he would almost be able to hear tiny cracks opening across the knuckles as those hands flexed.
"If I was hiding, you wouldn't see me till too late," Logan stuffed his hands in his pockets, uncomfortable with the frank gaze from Scott's unvisored face - he still flinched, anticipating the impact of force beams that never came. "Ororo sent me. Got a mission for you."
Summers shouldered the tray of fresh fish. "How many times do I have to tell you and Ororo that I'm not on the team anymore?" He kicked a screen door open with his boot; Logan could hear the squall of the indoorfish market. Summers paused on the threshold. "I'm fine. I don't need saving."
"Oh, yeah, it's all about you." Logan narrowed his eyes. "And not because we might need a hand with something." He watched colour flood in the man's face, and smiled at the scent of guilt. Gotcha.
The screen door slammed shut, and Logan waited with the cats and the fish heads, listening to Summers tidying things around the storeroom with unnecessary force. The man reappeared at the door with a baseball cap and a battered leather jacket, wreathed in the stale paper smell of resignation. "Okay. Tell me about it."
Summers' apartment was frugally furnished but it did have a fridge, and Logan saw it as a positive sign that this fridge was stocked with beer. They sat at the wobbly table in the kitchenette and Logan spread the files across the scarred plywood surface. Scott took a sip from his bottle and flipped through the papers.
"Kitty's trawling some website or other, and she finds a site that's advertising a cure for the Cure. Kids are spreading the word on the internet; if you were forced to take the Cure, here's a way to get your powers back." He frowned -the internet was a mysterious abstract to Logan, despite what the kids told him.
Scott raised an eyebrow. "You flew out here to consult on a snake-oil salesman? It's a con, to get money out of rich kids whose parents paid to get rid of their powers."
"Nah, that's the weird thing. They actually give you the money to fly out of the States, to get the treatment in Asia." Logan pointed his finger at Scott. "Can you think of anyone who might be interested in reversing the Cure and recruiting an army of grateful soldiers?"
Scott put his bottle down carefully. "You think Magneto has something to do with this?" He had that far-away expression that said he was putting pieces together in his head, and Logan felt more optimistic about this visit.
Logan shrugged. "Who knows? His plans do have that wacky quality we've all come to love. Anyway, whoever is behind it, they're not doing good - teenagers shouldn't be roaming around Madripoor on their own. It ain't the most wholesome of places. That's why we want you to go undercover, pretend you're looking to buy this cure."
"What good would I be undercover? If it's Magneto, he knows my face." Scott was sceptical.
Logan shrugged. "You don't have powers. And Magneto knows you well enough. I reckon he'd believe you were stupid enough to take the Cure." He raised his bottle to Summers, then took a long pull, swallowing with a satisfied sigh. "We want this to look as realistic as possible."
Outside the arctic cavern that was the main terminal of Madripoor International Airport, the air was slick and humid, and carried sounds and smells that tickled the back of Logan’s mind with infuriating familiarity. He stiffened his shoulders, and turned a full circle. The skyline was crammed with gleaming skyscrapers, but there was something about the curve of narrow roads around the harbour that he remembered. Summers, meanwhile, had finally finished changing his cash over and headed for the taxi stand still tucking his wallet away as he walked. The obsequious smiles of the waiting drivers widened and the lead driver - a skinny man in a stained shirt - hurried obligingly to open the trunk of his cab. Logan caught Summers by the neck, and steered him away.
"They’re looking for the rubes. Try not to act like one." He steered him towards the pedal-powered rickshaws parked haphazardly at the front of the parking garage. "Well, you know, just do the best you can."
With a smooth gesture, Summers pulled the hand from his neck and pressed it against the small of Logan’s back, leaning in close so that nobody could see the vicious little twist he put on the joint.
"Don’t patronise me. I know how to take care of myself." He released Logan's arm, and slung his bag into the carriage of the pedicab. Logan gave a grunt of surprise, but scrambled up onto the vinyl seat. The suspension on the mismatched wheels squealed in protest under his weight, and alarming twanging noises came from the undercarriage. The pedicab driver looked at him with a baleful expression, and Logan grimaced
"I guess we're walking, Summers." He slipped off the seat again, and reached out a hand for Summers' bag.
"Guess again." Summers flipped a few small coins to the driver and the pedicab driver scrambled onto the saddle of his bike. "See you tonight, Logan." Moving with jerky lurches at first, the cab was quickly trundling away at a good pace. Logan watched it disappear into the raucous traffic. From over the sounds of the city he could hear Summers' voice floating back.
"And find something to wear or you won't get into the club!"
Logan frowned, calculated the distance and angle to hit right between those smug shoulder blades with a small but painful rock, then hoisted his bag over his shoulder and slipped into the traffic on foot. He followed half-remembered paths that led him away from the skyscrapers and department stores, past tumbledown shrines and old wooden fences plastered and replastered with ads and posters. He bought a clean t-shirt from a man selling out of the back of his truck, parked in the rubble of a tumble-down church. Sometimes the crooked path he was following would take an unexpected turn and end facing the wall of an apartment block or the fence of a highway overpass, and he'd curse, and cast around for something else familiar. Had he spent so long at Westchester that he had forgotten what it was to chase a lost memory like this? Was it such a bad thing to forget? His thrust his hands into his pockets as he walked, thinking of the kids and the team, and how hard they had all worked to put the school back together after Alcatraz. No, that wasn't a bad thing. Summers should think hard about what he was walking away from, and if it was worth the indulgence of his personal grief.
At the club, Logan closed his eyes for a moment as waves of sound broke against his body, taking a moment to equilibrate before he pushed through the crowd to find Summers. Enhanced senses were not an advantage in a sweaty warehouse over-stuffed with kids oozing fear and lust and chemicals through their pores. He kept to the edge of the mass of bodies that jumped and twitched in unison on the strobing plexiglass platform, looking for a place where he could better scan the crowd for the top of Summers' head. The guy should be sticking out like a sore thumb in this crowd, but so far Logan hadn't seen anything, and he couldn't rely on his hearing or sense of smell in this barn. He staked his position close to the stairs, in the shadows cast by the over-hanging walkways and twisted cables - back here, nobody paid him much attention, all eyes were turned towards the roof. If you had the right genes, the place to be was above the dance floor, by any means possible - kids clung to the wires with tails and tentacles, hovered in the air on membranous wings, swept over the hoi polloi on a river of light. Only one person on the dance floor seemed unimpressed with the circus going on above; a girl, barely pubescent, with white hair that glowed under the changing lights. There was something strange about the way she moved, swaying back and forth, watching the movement of her own hands through the air. Logan eased his way through the crowd towards her - there was something oddly familiar about her scent. Something volatile hung about her mouth and nose, and the smell of it made Logan's hearing buzz and his vision blur. He shook his head to clear the interference, and opened his eyes into someone's fist, which hammered down on his face at super-speed. Bone grated against bone somewhere low on his skull, and as red-tinged darkness flooded in, he saw unkempt silver hair before his eyes, and cursed Summers for not watching his back. When he smelled Summers' blood on the man's knuckles, he cursed himself for not watching Scott.
The dull thudding in his head receded to the steady bass thump of the nightclub, some distance away now. He kept his eyes closed, and stilled his body after the initial jerk of awakening; someone was pressed up against his back, their hands intertwined with his, bound with thick rope. He opened his mouth to taste the scent - sea-salt and pressed chinos - that would be Summers. Logan breathed out slowly, feeling the tension in the other man's back as he pressed against it - Summers was conscious too, his muscles bunching and tight, his breathing raspy. Blood dripped rhythmically onto a clean shirt he had probably pressed himself. Logan tentatively slid out one claw to sever the rope that bound them together, but Summers opened his hand over the top of the blade, forcing him to stop, or cut through the man's palm. Logan twitched his shoulder in agitation and Summers tilted his head ever so slightly towards the centre of the room. A woman stood there, tall and lean, in the path of the stream of fresh air that poured in from under the door. She shifted gently from foot to foot, a deliberate action, it allowed something silken underneath the good wool suit to slide enticingly over her legs, something he guessed she knew only he could hear. Her perfume smelled expensive, even to Logan's uneducated nose.
"I know you're awake, Logan." The voice was dry and low, and triggered a sense memory of muscles that shifted under the skin like a snake. Mystique had not been seen since her disputed turn as informant on the Brotherhood; after Alcatraz she had slipped away from the government holding facility as easily as if she had never lost her powers. Logan wasn't surprised - she might be trapped in a single form, but Mystique would never be stupid enough to rely on just one extraordinary ability.
"I'm not going to waste my time or yours - I know that rope isn't going to hold either of you for long. You're not the only one expecting Erik to show up here." Logan heard a cellphone inside her jacket buzzing briefly until she slipped a hand inside to silence it. "I'm quite happy to hand him over to you, once he and I have had a little chat. I'm sure you've got some words you'd like to share. But consider this a friendly warning: I'm the expert here, and it goes down my way. Stay away from the club. Stay away from Quicksilver and his little brat." She turned with a final flare of silk on skin. and opened the door, pausing with her hand brushing against the steel handle. "I'm not locking the door, so don't bust the place up when you go." The door closed with a soft click, and Logan could hear her walking briskly across a concrete floor, talking softly into her cellphone.
They both waited silently, tense in the empty room, the walls shaking slightly with the beat from the nightclub. When Logan could no longer hear Mystique's footsteps, he extended one claw slowly, allowing Summers time to move his fingers out of the way. Logan leaned the edge against the rope, and let his body weight cut through the fibres. Nice and slow - nobody needed to lose a digit.
Summer's bloody nose dripped in and out of time with the faraway music. "Mystique seems to have done well for herself." His voice was a little thick, and there was blood in his mouth.
Logan snorted. "Did you ever doubt she wouldn't? She knew how to make this take as long as possible so she'd have time to get away." The rope twisted as it split against his claw, and the edge brushed against the skin on Summers' wrist, leaving behind it a thin line of welling blood. "Dammit. Sorry."
"It's nothing." Summers gave an ironic laugh. "And for future reference, it's down the road, not across the street."
"That's not funny." Logan shifted his weight around so that he could get a better angle on the rope. "You wouldn't be making a joke about that if you gave a damn about the people you'd be leaving behind."
"Nice to know you care, Logan." Summers' voice was dry and cold and he hunched his shoulders miserably, as though he couldn't bear the contact between their backs. The movement jerked the remaining fibres of the rope binding them out of Logan's reach. With an exasperated exhalation, Logan pulled his claw back with a swift click, and heaved hard against the rope, pushing back against Summers' body, tipping them both sideways with a thud. The air rushed out of Summers' chest, and as Logan found purchase against the wall, he felt the rope snap under his bodyweight. He was on his feet before Summers could catch his breath, and he pressed his boot on the man's chest just hard enough to stop him reinflating his lungs.
"You think I care? You want to eat a gun, or jump under a train, I'd say go for it. Please. This self-indulgent shit you're pulling makes me want to kill you myself. You know why I don't?"
Summers, his face a mottled purple, gasped for air, and wrapped his arm around Logan's leg, trying to pull him to the ground. Logan leaned harder, listening to the ribs creak. "I don't, because I've seen Ororo trying to hold it all together back home. And Henry, trying to be in three places at once, covering your spot on the team. And the kids putting on uniforms when they should be finishing school, all of them trying to be you. And even though you're going to say they'd all be better off without you, it's you they need." He stepped off, and walked to the door while Summers rolled on the floor, coughing. "And after everything that's happened, I don't want them to have to do without the thing they want."
"Sure sounds like you care to me." Summers had one knee under him, and one arm wrapped around his ribs, holding them still. He looked up at Logan with that disturbingly frank unshielded gaze. Logan wondered if seeing those eyes made it harder to assume Scott was by default an asshole. The thought was troubling.
"I have to punch something." He clenched his fist. "And satisfying as it would be to punch you, I reckon we'd better get back to Mystique's club."
Summers eased himself upright, shrugged his way out of his bloodied shirt, and used it to wipe the rest of the blood of his face. Then he balled it up, and thew it into the corner with a decisive gesture. "All right. Let's go."
It was a satisfying hour or so of violence, and Logan lost himself in it effortlessly. Mystique had evidently spent time and resources collecting former members of the Brotherhood, those with powers and those who had them taken by the Cure at Alcatraz. Once the fight was in full swing, Logan caught a glimpse of someone who could only be Quicksilver, moving in a blur, his daughter tucked under his arm, her limbs flailing, then he was distracted by an super-sized dough-boy who took a running jump at him from one of the walkways. Over by the bar, Summers had prised off the Juggernaut's helmet, and was clinging to his back, his arm crooked tight around the man's throat. It was joyous: balls of energy zooming around the room, laser beams and psychic blades flashing, glass breaking and punches flying. At least half of the room were fighting each other for no reason other than having something to do, and when the electricity finally went out and the sirens could be heard outside the club, the fight was deemed to be over. People leaned against the walls, and lolled on the dance floor, panting and bleeding, some fled and some ran out to plead innocence with the police. Logan found Scott by the shattered fish tank, scooping up flopping goldfish, and putting them in a miraculously unbroken vase.
"Good fight." Logan had lost his bolo tie, and his shirt was torn.
Scott's arm was covered in yellow paint and he had a rapidly swelling shiner. "I think we did some good here."
Mystique was at the front door, stepping delicately over broken glass, and haranguing a confused looking detective in perfect Malay, the very image of a high-powered business woman. When the detective had been suitably subdued, she picked her way across to where the two men stood.
"You meat-heads, what the hell is this?" She crossed her arms. "I've been baiting this trap for months to flush Erik out, and now he's going to stay as far away as he can."
Scott cradled the vase full of goldfish. "You've been luring kids over here for months, do you care about them? Or whatever the hell this cure is that you've been pumping into them?"
Logan extracted an unbroken bottle of bourbon from behind the bar, and wiped a glass clean on his pants. He poured two fingers into the glass, and handed it to Summers, then swigged from the bottle. "Actually, all I smelled in the club was ecstasy and that stuff dentists use. I don't think this Quicksilver was selling anything special."
Mystique looked sour, and held up the palm of her hand; the skin was mottled bruise-blue. "There is no need to reverse the Cure, it reverses by itself. Hence my limited time-frame - Erik's going to make the same discovery I did, and soon."
Scott swallowed his bourbon. "Magneto plays chess in Mission Park, San Francisco, on Thursdays and Sundays. You probably shouldn't have advertised this place on the internet, he's not exactly in that demographic."
"The Cure isn't permanent? And you didn't tell anyone?" Logan thought of the students who had taken the Cure, willingly or otherwise, and felt his enthusiasm for brawling fade away. "Come on, Summers. We need to go home."
Summers put the glass on the bar, and handed the vase of fish to Mystique. "Best not to overstay our welcome."
On the flight home, Logan propped his hat over his eyes, and tried to doze, even though it was a fruitless effort: the person ahead of him insisted on constantly reclining their chair and it knocked against his knees. Beside him, Summers was reading the complimentary magazine, like he was interested in resort getaways or fine gemstones. He licked his finger before he turned each page.
"Do you know how many people have read that magazine?" Logan said, from under his hat. "I know, and I can tell you that one of them didn't wash after the bathroom."
Scott tucked the magazine away neatly in the seat pocket. "You must be so much fun at restaurants."
"I embrace the fast-food philosophy. Magneto was in San Fran, all this time?"
Scott nodded. "I caught sight of him at the market, and followed him."
"So, what? You took a flight to Madripoor because you really love airline food? All those neat little packets of peanuts?" The chair in front of him slid back so far, the head cushion brushed the brim of Logan's hat. He thought about popping a claw through the foam.
Scott leaned his head back against the seat. "It was time for a change. And someone was up to something, even if I knew it wasn't Magneto. He's keeping a low profile. Doesn't even have the phone hooked up."
"Can't blame him, with Mystique on his tail." Logan finally thrust his knee hard into the back of the chair in front of him. After a moment, the seat moved forward and remained there. "So, you're done with finding yourself now? Going to stop gutting fish, and come home?"
"It wasn't about that." Scott brushed absently at invisible lint on his pants. "When the ship goes down, you cling to the wreckage for a while, just to make sure you're alive."
Logan reached out with a finger and poked the purpling bruise around Scott's eye. "This tells you you're alive."
Scott winced. "For you, maybe. I didn't feel so much then."
Logan could believe it. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, thinking about the expression on Scott's face when they found him at Alkali Lake. "Is this great explanation going somewhere, or should I just rip a hole in your shirt so we can both gaze at your navel together?"
"So, you cling to the wreckage for a while. Then one day, you build a raft." Scott's hands rested on his legs, fingers outstretched and still.
"You build a raft?" Logan could feel sleep hovering somewhere just out of reach. He stretched out his legs and let it come.
"Yeah," Scott's breathing slowed too - the evening's exertion had taken a toll on him. It was going to be a blast getting him back into fighting shape. "You build a raft, and then you sail it home."