Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Morning, sunshine.”

“Motherfucker.” Logan screwed his eyes shut. “Can you please put on some clothes?”

“That’s not what you were screaming out last night, babygirl,” Wade said cheerfully. He tossed another set of steaming pancakes onto their struggling coffee table and dragged Logan over. The naked dick swung a little too close to his cheek for comfort as he reluctantly sat down.

“What the fuck is all this?”

“A healthy breakfast for your first day of Avengering,” He said, sliding his fingers down Logan’s neck and shoulders to squeeze his chest, “oh, the girls are excited. Rock hard nipples. It’s gonna rain today, I can tell.”

“Get your hands off of me. It’s the fourth week already, dipshit.”

“Has it really been that long? Time flies when you’re having sex. Please try them,” Wade encouraged, stabbing a fork through three floppy pancakes and lifting them up to Logan’s frowning face. His stomach jumped uncomfortably at the strong scent of animal fat and grease.

“I’m not hungry,” He said, making to stand.

“Not so fast,” Wade swung a scarred thigh over his hip and sat his bare balls down in Logan’s lap. The IKEA chair squeaked dangerously beneath their combined weight. “Kiss for good luck?”

“Don’t need luck.”

“Well, how about a kiss for–”

He shut Wade up with his tongue. The inside of his mouth was also lined with the same textured bumps as the rest of him, just softer and wetter, an interesting detail Logan had gleaned from the head of his penis rubbing repeatedly against Wade’s inner cheeks these past few months. As it turned out, an enthusiastic blowjob before bed really chased the night terrors away. The vaginal sex helped too, he supposed.

All was quiet for a few glorious moments while they swapped spit. Then, Mary Puppins puked on the new carpet in the living room and Wade broke away with a curse.

“Is it the Kirkland brand kibble? Why does this keep happening, girl?”

Logan watched them from the kitchen chair, the last faint dregs of arousal fading away. Discomfort returned. He flexed his stiff fingers and went to open the fridge. There was nothing in there except for a half-eaten roast chicken and the giant tub of potato salad Vanessa had gotten for them from Ray’s last week.

“Where’s the whiskey?” He asked Wade.

“Oh, I tossed it,” The fucker said brightly, “no more daydrinking now that you’re an Avenger, babe.”

His claws came out. “What did I say about touching my shit, Wade?”

“You want to do this now?” Wade dropped the dog and rolled his shoulders back, “gonna be late for school, champ. And I’ll have to replace the carpets again.”

“Fuck you,” He grunted, slamming the fridge door shut and grabbing his jacket off of the couch.

Logan made it downstairs and a few blocks before the tremors overtook him. Withdrawal was a bitch. He staggered into an empty alley, doubled over and vomited what little stomach acid he had left. There was a used condom and a dead rat lying on a half-eaten slice of pizza next to his left boot. He closed his eyes, forehead resting against the smoke-blackened brick of the restaurant building and sucked in a few breaths through his mouth. The combined smell of food, trash and human waste was making him nauseous again, but if he made it to the Avengers tower, there was alcohol waiting. Sweet, sweet–

“Logan?”

Fuck.

He slit open one eye. A blurry figure swam into focus. Wade’s reality had some seriously twisted humor to give Captain America the same face and body as the foulmouthed kid Wade had gotten killed in the void, Johnny something.

“You ok?” Rogers asked, his smile slipping.

“Yeah, just…not a morning person.”

“Do you live in the area?” He asked, falling easily into step beside Logan as he staggered out onto the sidewalk. “We’re in Brooklyn. It’s a bit far out but I like the morning jog into work.”

“We?”

“Oh, Buck and I,” Rogers said, “do you live alone?”

“I wish.”

“Nice weather today,” He commented, peering up at the bright blue sky. Not a single cloud was in sight.

“Can we not do this?” Logan asked.

“Do what?”

“Small talk,” He grimaced, “respectfully, I don’t give a shit about you or the rest of the Avengers. Just accepted the job offer for the hefty paycheck.”

“Right,” Rogers bit his lip. “I’ll shut up.”

If it were only this easy with the missus back home.

“Thank you.”

“Two geriatrics walk into a bar…” Stark whistled as he watched Logan gulp down his thousand-dollar scotch straight from the bottle. “Easy, old timer. It’s not even noon yet. Remind me to give you the contact info of my AA group.” He sniffed Steve’s drink and made a face, “you two didn’t show for the morning meeting with the Secretary of Defense today.”

“You know I hate politics, Tony. And Logan here’s just in it for your money.”

He belched and tossed the empty bottle. “Booze ain’t half bad, either.”

“Freeloading parasites, the lot of you,” Stark said, smirking. “Offer still stands if you want to move in, Hello Kitty.”

The guy was somehow even more irritating than Wade. At least the Deadpool package came with unlimited orgasms.

“Answer’s still no.”

He spent the rest of that early afternoon doing simulation reps in one of Stark’s training rooms until an ugly alarm interrupted Logan’s concentration. He’d hated the intercom system at the Xavier School, but this was somehow worse. To add to the growing list of irritants, he ran into Stark in the elevator. The billionaire's eyebrows shot up his face at the sight of Logan’s bare torso.

“Damn, how are you even more ripped than the younger grandpa?” Stark said, “really making me feel inadequate in my own house.”

Logan dabbed the beads of sweat off his neck with his forearm. “Fuck off.”

“Suit up, team,” Rogers said when they stepped out onto the floor. It was just him.

“You really need three people to deal with a bank robbery?” Then, Logan glanced at the massive mounted screen and felt his heart sink. There was a familiar-looking red and black suit flitting among the thick pillars of smoke billowing from the burning building.

“Damn it.”

“Yeah,” Rogers sighed, “there’s been casualties reported.”

“Hey guys, it’s all good!” Wade shouted when he spotted them, “just a bit of hair pulling among friends, who, umm, are all dead now. By me. I sent everyone to that nice farm upstate. No need to whip out the big guns.”

Some entrails sluiced down the nearby traffic light, a stray kidney rolling to a gentle stop in front of Logan.

“Oh, hello there, Johnny,” Deadpool waved a katana at Rogers, “see, sweetums, I told you he’d live. T'was but a flesh wound.”

“Let me handle this,” Logan said to Captain America as he weaved his way through the pileup of taxis and cracked pavement. People shoved and screamed, running past him in the opposite direction.

“That’s right, yeah, my babygirl’s an Avenger,” Wade yelled at a headless corpse, pausing to blow a few kisses Logan’s way. “Hi, pookums. So proud, look at him go. Light of my life and fire of my loins. Tightest fucking pussy in all of the multiver–”

Logan lobbed a sizable chunk of concrete at his head.

“Roommate?” Rogers asked with a sympathetic smile.

“I suspect it’s not exactly the same chaste christian union you and Barnes got going on,” Stark deadpanned from the sidelines. He powered up his repulsors and launched into the air. “Drop your weapons, lunatic.”

Wade chucked his blade at the man’s helmeted face and dove off the side of the building, loose banknotes fluttering after him like the train of a wedding dress.

“Fuck,” Logan muttered and took off after him on foot.

“Hi, princess,” Wade laughed, the sound rumbling up his chest when Logan managed to pin him down behind an overflowing dumpster.

Logan punched his claws into the bricks next to his head. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Stark flew by overhead. Sirens wailed in the distance. Wade rolled them deeper into the shadows, their legs tangling in the process. He was hard against Logan’s thigh, erect dick pushing flush against the zipper of his bloodsoaked suit. He dug his knee into Wade’s cock as punishment and heard him whine behind the mask, mouth falling open.

“I got fired from the used car dealership last week,” Wade panted, rutting shamelessly against the painful pressure.

“Why?”

“Turns out you’re not supposed to pop a boner every time you show off a secondhand Honda Odyssey. Especially not in front of divorced moms and their underage children.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Wade. You could have told me.”

“Yeah, addiction to Wolverine puss is no joke,” He laughed, pawing at Logan’s zipper. “So, I have decided to fall back on my regularly scheduled criminal activities and contract killing during these hard times. Either that or sell my beautiful body for cash, but we’re monogamous now, remember?”

“I can handle the rent,” Logan grunted, eyes fluttering shut as Wade’s fingers breached him. Rutting against each other in the back of a Chinese restaurant on a Monday during work hours was a new low, but he was soaked through.

“Oh, am I to be your kept woman?” Wade gasped, stuffing a third finger in his cunt. His smile turned predatory. “How scandalous. What would your fellow Avengers think?”

“They can go fuck themselves,” He choked out past a shaky moan, clenching his inner muscles against the rough intrusion. Shockwaves of hot pleasure rocked up Logan’s spine, the filthy squelching sound of Wade’s fingers in his vagina loud over the background hum of a nearby radiator. Wade's other hand touched his dick, thumb digging into the wet slit on top. Logan came hard, legs grounding shut. There was a dull snap as the wrist with the fingers still crammed up his cunt broke.

“Fuck,” Deadpool hissed, going limp against him, “you gonna give me a helping hand here, thunder thighs?”

“I’ll give you somethin’ better, bub,” He said and dropped to his knees.

“You, uh, still got a little something there,” Stark said, gesturing vaguely, “on the corner of your mou– the sideburns, yeah.”

Logan wiped his face with the back of his hand and tossed the last bag of mob cash onto the ground in front of Ironman. He cleared his throat. “There you go.”

“That’s definitely more than five dollars' worth.”

“We done here?” He grunted.

“Maybe,” Stark said cryptically as he swept his eyes down Logan’s disheveled appearance. “Wanna grab a drink to wash out the aftertaste? My treat.”

Chapter Text

“How’s school?”

Logan tossed a few fries at the flock of pigeons and seagulls on the pier. Laura pushed the pink sunglasses up her nose and sucked in a big gulp of milk tea.

“Boring,” She said, cheeks bulging as she chewed on the tapioca pearls. “How’s work?”

“Uneventful.”

They watched a tourist group of tiny old Asian ladies wearing matching I ♡ NYC shirts take a group selfie with a giant iPad. It was a nice day out. Logan saw her on most Tuesdays because Laura didn't have any classes scheduled then.

“And Wade?” She asked, reaching over to steal some of his food.

Logan held out the remaining fries to give her better access. “More ketchup?”

“No, this is good.” Laura smiled the way she always did when he was nice to her. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“He’s…”

Too easy to like. It was unsettling how well they fit together. Wade just took Logan as he came. All his anger, guilt, trauma, and mile-long list of issues. Wade’s list was probably longer, but it was a refreshing change after a few hundred years of holding back his strength and tiptoeing around people who saw him as an abomination. He didn’t have to do any of that with Wade. He'd seen Logan at rock-bottom and still invited him to stay. Shit in the bedroom was so goddamn satisfying now that he had a partner with matching if not quicker regeneration capabilities. He was really starting to enjoy that textured dick, too. 

Laura cleared her throat expectantly. She was peering up at him through the gap in her sunnies.

“...still fugly,” Logan said, face going hot.

She laughed and poked one of her razorsharp little elbows into his ribs. “Don’t talk about your boyfriend like that.”

She’d walked in on them sucking faces one time and had never let Logan live it down since.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” He protested with a scowl.

“He’s totally your boyfriend! You guys live together in a one bedroom apartment, jointly own a dog you stole off of a dead man,” She stuck a French fry into Logan’s frowning mouth with each accusation, “and your expression gets all pinched and a little dreamy when you talk about him! You know, like in Pride and Prejudice.”

He chewed and swallowed. “What?”

“I watched it with Yukio and Jubilee last week. The one with Keira Knightly. Have you seen it? It’s good. You should watch it with Wade. Does he have a TV?”

“We’re not…boyfriends.” Logan shuddered at the word, “it’s a one bed because this fucking trash city costs an arm and a leg to live in, the dog’s so ugly it’ll probably get mistaken for a small subway rat and euthanized if we didn’t, and I don’t look like that when I talk about my…”

Roommate? Steve Rogers’s stupid smiling face surfaced in his mind’s eye.

“Fuck,” He muttered, mood gone sour.

As if sensing Logan’s sudden hostility, the pigeons at their feet took flight in an explosion of feathers and claws. One of the little old Asian ladies shuffled over and asked for assistance with another group photo. Laura jumped to her feet and took the iPad.

“Wait, I know,” She said with a laugh, “he’s your soulmate.”

“Same time next week?” Laura asked him when the car rolled to a stop outside the school.

“You know it,” Logan said, letting her nudge their knuckles together. It was their special version of a hug. She grinned and hopped out.

“Say hi to your boyfriend for me,” Laura shouted, purposefully projecting her voice and making the handful of kids hanging out on the grassy field look up. He stuck out his middle claw, and she laughed again. One of the younger boys, familiar maroon shades over his eyes, was watching Logan, open textbook forgotten in his lap. The soft warm breeze ruffled the loose pages.

Scott’s cheeks were still round with baby fat. His only concerns were probably grades, girls and the endless stretch of summer days ahead, and that was good. Logan smiled at the thought, gave the kids a brief nod and stepped on the gas pedal. He took the long way back to the city, leaving the windows wide open and letting the wind run invisible fingers over his exposed skin.

It finally felt like a good time to be alive.

Wade wasn’t home when he got back, so Logan went to pick up Mary Puppins from Al’s place. He brought along some fresh groceries from a nearby bodega and cleaned out the mountain of dirty dishes piled up in her sink while the old woman puttered about, cursing under her breath about the smell of broccoli stinking up her place.

“You need some vegetables, Althea,” He said, grunting when she smacked the back of his thighs with her cane, “it’s healthy, you’ll live longer.”

“Live longer,” She snorted, “for what? More arthritis and eventually going deaf?”

Logan dried his hands and turned around, “Wade, I guess. And we got blacklisted by all the dog sitters in the neighborhood on account of our subway rat trying to hump all the bigger dogs, so she has to stay with you while we’re at work.”

“Not exactly the grandbaby I was expecting,” Al muttered before cocking her head, “it’s fuckin’ peeing on my wall, isn’t it?”

He glanced over and sighed, “yeah, I’ll clean up.”

Al shuffled over to a chair and sat while Logan crouched to wipe dog piss out of the ancient floorboards.

“You’re a good man, Logan,” She said after a pause, “don’t tell the hairless ballsack I said this but he deserves a good man after all the fucked up shit he’s been through.”

He stilled.

“Hell, I got a few years left in me, but you, you’ll be here for Wade long after all of us are in the ground and that’s a good thing.”

“I’ve been alive for more than two hundred years.”

“What’s that like?”

“Like having a million paper cuts. It just…hurts all the time.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Do the orgasms help?”

“Excuse me?”

“You two weren’t exactly quiet while you were doing the horizontal tango here,” Al said bluntly, “well, do they?”

“Sure,” Logan mumbled, grateful she couldn’t see his ears go red.

“Good, tell him I said to give you more,” She ordered, “I’d offer my cocaine stash but you don’t partake.”

“Trying to shake the booze too,” He admitted, scrubbing his hands clean in the sink, “progress is not going great.”

“Good on you for trying,” Al said, reaching over to pat his shoulder and connecting with Logan’s ass instead, “I’m too damn old for character development.”

He liked her, and the rest of Wade’s strange little gaggle of diehards. They were probably low life degenerates by Tony Stark and the Avengers’s standards, but Logan felt at ease around them. The way he felt around Wade, which was still kind of complicated considering—

“His girl,” Logan finally brought up the subject, “I never got the full story.”

“Don’t be a coward and talk to her yourself,” Al said before shrugging, “she’s nice enough, for an ex-hooker.”

“Jesus.”

“I’m old, I don’t got time to mince words, honey.”

“You’re a young woman compared to me, Althea.”

“Don’t be a flirt, Logan, you’re not my type.”

That made him laugh, and the knot loosened a little inside Logan’s chest. He rubbed a hand over his face and nodded. “I’ll shut up.”

“I think he was trying to be something he could never be with her. Not all men are cut out to be fathers or live the white picket fence life.”

“Was that what they were trying to…?”

“For a baby, yes. And then she got killed and all that messy shit with the metal arm time traveler happened and she broke up with him.” Al waved a hand, “can you imagine a goddamn child growin’ up around that? Kid would be so fucked in the head no amount of therapy could ever fix it.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Evening, husband, I made you dinner. With one hand, I might add!”

A wall of smells walloped Logan in the face when he pushed open the door to their single bedroom apartment that evening. He dropped the paper grocery bag Mary Puppins was wrapped in and took in the gruesome sight. Blood and various other bodily fluids were everywhere – smeared over the floor, ceiling and countertops. There was no way they’d get their deposit back from the landlord. Wade stood in the center of the madness, his right arm lying by the sofa and a few stray bullet rounds still popping out of the healing flesh over his chest. Their second-hand microwave dinged as whatever frozen TV dinner finished its miserable cycle inside.

“Hey hey hey, no licking the blood off of Daddy’s arm,” Wade yelled, running over to kick at the damn dog with one of his yellow crocs.

Logan couldn’t hold it in any longer. He shoved past Wade, shoes slipping on the half-congealed mess as he scrambled into the bathroom and heaved up the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl.

“Here, let me hold your mutton chops back while you vomit, girlfriend,” Wade’s annoying voice sounded over his shoulder. Logan felt a gentle hand on his back and glanced up to find the deranged lunatic using his own severed limb to do the rubbing. Wade frowned, “you’re not usually this squeamish around blood. What’s going on? Are we finally pregnant? About damn time, it only took two whole months and fifteen fucking gallons of my sperm creampied in your vagina.”

“Fuck off,” He gasped, struggling to his feet and dunking his face under the weak tap to rinse out the disgusting aftertaste. The shower curtains rustled. Logan lifted his head sharply, claws instinctually flexing out of his knuckles. “Who’s there? What the hell did you do, Wade?”

“Goddamn it, how’s he awake again?” Deadpool complained, tossing his arm into the living room and stomping past Logan. “Look, before you yell at me or stab me with your steak knives, this fucker shot at me first, ok? I’m the innocent one here. I was just out shopping like the good housewife I am.”

He yanked the plastic shower curtains open. There was a dark haired man lying in their bathtub, both arms and legs bound together with a familiar hot pink egg vibrator stuffed in his mouth and the pull-out silicone string dangling down his chin. He wriggled furiously under their gaze, tendons straining in his flushed neck.

“Sorry, baby, the asshole wouldn't stop shouting and I had to improvise,” Wade muttered darkly, “I’ll buy you a new one.”

“Who the fuck is he?” Logan asked, squinting down at the stranger. There was dried blood and dirt smeared all over his face.

“Dunno,” Wade shrugged. Sensing that Logan was more confused than mad, he plastered his body against his back, the good arm winding around Logan’s waist. He gave a fake sniff and said in a wobbly, teary baby voice, “he gave me so many owies, pookums. You have to kiss them better.”

“Is that a metal arm on him?”

“Uh-huh,” Wade’s hand was sneaking its way up his shirt to tug lightly at the trail of hair and draw little distracting circles over Logan’s skin. “If I had a nickel for every time a guy with a metal arm tried to kill me, I’d have two, which— no, actually I’d have three if you count in Colossus from the first movie. Not a lot, but still.”

“He’s not the time traveler?”

“No, that’s Thanos from the second one.”

Fingers caught his right nipple and pinched. Logan batted Wade’s hand away, “why’d you bring him here?”

“Oh, I was gonna chop off the fancy fake hand and hock it on the black market for a buttload of cash,” He said with a toothy grin, “one of Weasel’s book club friends runs a shop for high-end prosthetics and organ stuff.”

He twisted to stare at Wade, “Weasel’s in a book club?”

“Yeah, they meet every first Friday of the month, shoot up on fentanyl and discuss a romantic comedy on the New York Times Best Seller list. It’s been nonstop Nicholas Sparks since last August. I’m on the mailing list.”

“Christ,” Logan groaned, massaging his forehead. His head was starting to hurt, the earlier good mood now fully dispelled. The man in the tub thrashed again, letting out a muffled growl. “Ok, but you still can’t scrap him for parts. Get rid of the guy.”

“As in kill…him?” Wade asked hopefully.

“No, you dumb fuck. As in take the fucking vibrator out of his mouth, cut him loose and dump him somewhere far from here so I don’t have to keep hearing him breathing like he’s in labor.”

“But—”

“One more word out of that anal slit you call a mouth and you’re sleeping on the couch for the week, bub.”

“Motherfucker,” Wade snarled, “sorry, baby bear, not directed at you.” He lifted a leg and kicked the guy in the head. “Fine. Shit! Fuck! But I’m keeping his big gun!”

There was a tiny CVS across the street from their apartment building. Logan found himself standing in front of the shelf with the Pepto Bismol the next morning. Its packaging was the exact same bright pink shade as his—

“Damn it,” He muttered under his breath and grabbed a bottle.

Logan turned to go and, out of the corner of his eye, caught sight of the little “Family Planning” tag. There was no fucking way. The puking was probably just indigestion. He was over two hundred years old. His ovaries had to be shooting dust by now. Wade and his biology didn’t even match. Logan refused to piss on a plastic stick to prove what he already knew to be true.

He paid at the register, chugged the whole thing of stomach medicine in a few big gulps on his way out, and tossed the empty bottle in an alley dumpster.

Chapter Text

“Yellow looks good on you.”

This was a dream, Logan knew. He recognized that gnarled tree at the edge of the X-Men compound that the kids used to swing from during the warmer months. They would spread picnic blankets beneath its thick green canopy and waste the time away. It was usually Rogue, Kurt and Bobby, and on rare occasions, he’d see Jean and…

“Always thought it made me look fat,” Logan murmured, peering down at the empty field from the second floor balcony. The sun was setting on the horizon. His ghost laughed, the soft sound carried off into the distance by the evening breeze.

“Scott?”

“Yeah.”

“I never said this before,” Logan swallowed against the tightness in his throat, “but…I’m sorry I was such a pain in the ass and kept trying to push you all away.” His eyes stung, “truth is, I was just…scared you’d figure out one day that I wasn’t worth the trouble after all.”

“You were the biggest pain,” Scott agreed, “and yet I would not have had it any other way.”

A hand touched his shoulder and Logan finally dared to look at him. He was in his prime, that Scott Summers Logan remembered at the time of his death. The specter fully turned to him then, a warm palm settling on the back of his neck.

“Don’t worry, old friend,” Scott smiled, “we are coming for you.”

“What?”

Logan woke with a start. The sheets were bunched uncomfortably around his torso, Wade’s heavy body plastered against his side. He could hear distant sirens past his quiet rhythmic snores. It was still dark out, well, as dark as it could be in a city that never slept. Neon lights outside threw fuzzy distorted shapes across their bedroom ceiling. His pillow was wet. Logan wiped at the tears trailing down his temples and took a few deep breaths to calm his nerves. It was just a dream, his mind dragging up echoes of past traumas. Wade sometimes had them too. He’d caught him whimpering in his sleep last week.

As if sensing Logan’s thoughts, the breathing halted against his chest. Wade groaned and stirred, mumbling something unintelligible and smacking his lips. Logan carefully extracted himself from the choke-hold and stuffed the pillow into Wade’s arms instead. He propped himself up on one arm and studied the manic idiot under the faint lights streaming in through their cheap blinds. When he was awake, Wade never stayed still long enough for Logan to get a good look at him. But now, he was lying within touching distance, guard finally down and drooling slightly from the corner of his parted mouth as he slept. Logan brushed the pad of his index finger over the bumpy surface of Wade’s shoulder, tracing the overlapping whorls, divots and scars that all came together to form the endless galaxies etched upon his skin.

It must hurt, he thought, studying Wade’s face. He must hurt all the time, too.

“No…we can’t do this…” Wade mumbled, expression suddenly twisting as he gave a full-body shudder, “I mustn’t…what about my beautiful wife…”

Logan wondered what was going on inside that chaotic inferno Wade called a brain. He was probably dreaming about sex, the sick fuck.

“Wait, please don’t cry. I’m sorry…” His breath hitched. There was a pregnant pause, and then Wade moaned out a name—

“Thor.”

Logan’s curiosity fizzled and morphed into something significantly less mild. He snuck a hand between the dickhead’s legs, fingers curling around his unprotected ballsacks, and twisted hard.

“Ah, fuck!” Wade yelped, eyes snapping open as he curled in on himself at the unexpected shock of pain. “Wha…?”

“Pleasant dream, bub?”

“No, no, no, I didn’t fold, babygirl. You have to believe me,” Wade babbled, shooting upright in an avalanche of sheets and flailing limbs, the rush of words pouring out of his mouth still a little slurry with sleep, “He tried shoving his massive titties in my face, that absolute whore, but by god I held onto my principles and my dick and I prevailed in the name of lov–”

Logan crawled on top of him and shut him up with a kiss. Wade’s mouth tasted a little stale, but Logan didn’t care. He was pliant beneath him for a change, and the cover of night somehow made it easier to give in to baser desires. Logan liked to sleep in the nude, but he’d woken up a few times too many with Wade’s dick inside him that he started wearing boxers to bed. They tore like tissue paper as he hooked a claw through the clothing and the first dragging slide of his bare pussy against the textured skin of Wade’s thigh had Logan groaning into the man’s open mouth.

“Heh, are you going to break my leg this time?” Wade chuckled past a yawn, “I’m down, sugar bear. I’m down for anything you want to do to me.”

Logan paused to study his face. Wade gave a dorky double thumbs-up, the long muscular line of his body loose and relaxed beneath Logan’s not-so-insignificant weight. There was trust here, inexplicable and a little frightening.

“I know,” He murmured, kissing Wade again, soft and languid, nipping at his lower lip. Sex between them was always a mad rush of hormones and sensations magnified beyond comprehension. He led and Wade happily followed. But Logan wasn’t the gentle sort, and he’d never paused long enough to get a taste of Wade’s skin without spilling blood. He did so now as he lazily rubbed off against the man’s leg, his own slick easing the pleasurable glide. Logan sucked a light trail down Wade’s jaw and neck, over his thundering pulse, tracing the uneven surface with his tongue.

“Oh god, I died, didn’t I?” Wade babbled, clinging to him, minute tremors racking his body, “Why’m I being rewarded for having a sexy dream about Thor?”

Logan bit down on the side of his neck and snapped, “shut the fuck up about Thor.”

Wade moaned, dick twitching against Logan’s lower stomach. He leaned in and ran the flat side of his tongue over Logan’s left nipple, teeth fastening around the small nub of flesh as his cheeks hollowed. He thumbed at the other one, and that was enough to push Logan over the edge, wet cunt pressed flush against Wade’s thigh, pulses upon pulses of pleasure shooting up his entire body from the spot between his legs. Wade’s hand went to his own dick, stripping the hard flesh furiously while he suckled on Logan’s chest. Logan took over for him, letting the man rut mindlessly into his tight grip until Wade spilled with a quiet whimper. It dripped down his knuckles and over Wade’s heaving belly. Logan gathered up some of the spend, and under his wide-eyed gaze, slid those fingers deep into his pussy.

“Holy shit,” Wade’s lips parted with a groan, “how are you fucking real?”

It didn’t take long to get him hard again. Logan's tongue in his mouth did the trick.

“Thor.”

He drew back and frowned. “What?”

“Thought saying his name again might get me a repeat performance,” Wade shrugged shamelessly as he pushed his face into Logan’s chest. There was a note of genuine bewilderment in his voice as he muttered under his breath, “Mommy’s being so nice to me, I don’t know what to do. Hold me, girls. Hold me tight.”

It obviously wasn’t Thor’s name that did it. Logan wasn’t even sure what had gotten him so worked up in the first place, but he swung a leg over Wade’s hip and sat himself down on his jutting dick. The soft rhythmic grind felt nice for a change, but Wade was stiff as a board under him, hands clenched tightly in the bedding beneath them and panting like he was about to have a panic attack.

He stopped riding Wade and put a hand on his neck, “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing,” The idiot gasped, avoiding Logan’s eyes, “I’m good, promise. I’ll keep it to myself. Don’t want to ruin the mood.”

He had an inkling of what Wade wanted to say, and if he was correct, it was not roommate material. Logan sighed. He brushed his knuckles against Wade’s jaw. “Can’t really make love if you won’t put your hands on me.”

“Is that what this is?” He asked, peering up at Logan with such open wonder it made his chest ache.

“Maybe,” He said and kissed Wade again.

And then, hands were touching him all over, the soft swell of his hips where he’d put on a little bit of fat, his ass and thighs, over his chest, and— His breath hitched as Wade blew a kiss into his hand and pressed the palm over Logan’s abdomen.

“Sorry for disturbing your nap, sweetie. Mommy and Daddy are just having a bit of fun.”

“I’m not pregnant, you lunatic.”

“Not with that attitude, Negative Nancy.”

Later, with the dickhead’s arms wrapped around his naked waist and drooling into the back of his neck, Logan called official time of death for the whole roommate situation. That was definitely not whatever the fuck was going on between the two of them.

“Did we…” Wade’s expression was a little disoriented when he woke up the next morning. He rubbed the back of his head and smiled down at his lap, “I could have sworn we made love in the middle of the night and it was hands down the best sex I’ve ever had.”

Logan kicked his ripped boxers under the bed before Wade could see them and said, “wasn’t my name you were moaning in your sleep, bub.”

“What?!” He gasped, alarm overtaking his features, “Who was I–”

“Oh, hold me, Thor,” Logan mocked in a high-pitched lady's voice.

“First of all, don’t ever fucking do that again, and secondly, I would never. You own my freaking cock and balls, you know that,” Wade sputtered, staggering out of bed, “wait, why are you all dressed? Are you leaving me because I had an involuntary sexy dream about Thor? I will kill myself, Logan, I swear to—”

“I’m late for work, you dumb piece of shit.”

“Oh.” Wade blinked. “Well, have a lovely day Avengering then, peanut. I’ll see you when you get back? I’m serious though, don’t you fucking leave me.”

“Jesus Christ, I’m not leaving!”

“Good,” The maniac’s shoulders slumped, relieved, “and don’t forget to bring your lunch.”

“What lunch?”

“It’s in the refrigerator. I made it for you from scratch yesterday wearing a skintight outfit and perfect makeup. Hashtag TradWife TradLife.”

Rampant mold had overtaken the chicken carcass on the top shelf. There were two cans of beer left and what looked like half a dozen grenades sitting in an empty egg carton wedged all the way in the back. Oh, and the tub of potato salad from Ray's they’d been subsisting off of for the past few days like a pair of pathetic cockroaches was still there.

Wade honestly made a terrible housewife.

He took a break with Steve Rogers on the main terrace of the tower right under that flashy “A” during the lunch hour. The Avengers building was so unnecessarily tall that pedestrians below looked like little flecks of dust from up there. It was a true testament of what generational wealth and modern architectural design coming together could achieve — a shiny, metallic and vaguely phallic middle finger to the gods that was extremely hazardous to birds.

“Did we really just sit through a two-hour petition of how Stark Industries deserves yet another tax cut?”

“Yeah,” Rogers said, peering down at the streets below. “Want the other half of my tuna sandwich?”

“No, that’s communism.”

Captain America laughed and shook his head. “Logan, what do you have against Tony?”

“I don’t trust altruistic rich guys. It’s never no-strings-attached,” He shrugged, lighting up a cigar he’d nicked from Stark’s stash, “they don’t become billionaires by being selfless.”

“Well, I’d say you’re probably right.”

“Man like that, money’s not the end goal anymore, not when you’ve got enough stockpiled away to last generations. No, it’s all about legacy, what name he’s gonna leave behind when he dies. And I bet he’s not above sweeping a few things under the rug to get there.”

“That’s…surprisingly insightful.”

“I’m over two hundred years old, kid. I’ve met my fair share of Tony Starks.”

“Wow, it’s been a while since anyone called me a kid,” He said, brushing bread crumbs out of his lap and peering over at Logan, “I’ll be honest, I’m still surprised you picked us over your old X-Men team.”

“They’re not my old team,” Logan corrected him, “my old team’s all dead.”

“I’m sorry, that was insensitive of me.”

“It’s fine, no need to walk on eggshells around that,” Logan said, “you know, you don’t strike me as the type that would associate with the likes of Stark.”

“What do you mean?”

“You still got that working class stench.”

“Oh good, glad it hasn’t been overpowered by Tony’s awful cologne,” Rogers said drily. He bowed his head, “I, uh, didn’t want to come back after the German airport incident, but this was part of Bucky’s trial settlement agreement, so here we are.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

They sat in silence for a while. Then, Rogers nudged him, “hey, wanna spar? I can take a punch.”

Logan put the cigar out in his palm and side-eyed him, “not mine, you can’t.”

“Try me, old man,” Rogers said, leaping to his feet and rolling his neck with a grin.

And it was that day that Logan found out the unfortunate truth that Captain America had sharper elbows than Laura and fought like a dirty little bitch.

The vomiting didn’t stop. His chest had gotten tender to the touch as well.

Logan studied his reflection in the mirror. Had he packed on a few more pounds? There was now a noticeable layer of fat covering his abs. He poked at his stomach and frowned. Logan was starting to look a lot bigger and softer compared to Wade’s tight one-eighty no matter how many false compliments Stark flung his way.

He went back to the CVS on the street corner, except this time the family planning section that had held the boxed pregnancy tests was empty. Logan squinted at the tiny print on the pricing label. They were doing a buy one get one free deal, and he was in the right aisle looking at the right shelf.

It was still empty though.

“Fuck,” Logan muttered under his breath and left the store.

Chapter Text

“Oh, the test kits have been recalled, sir,” A CVS sales clerk said as she pushed a tiny cart down the aisle. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be nosy, but I’ve seen you in here like half a dozen times in the past two days.”

“What do you mean…recalled?” Logan asked, face going hot under her scrutiny. The girl reminded him a little of Laura with the long brown hair, shiny lip gloss, and the cluster of pastel-colored stuffed animal charms weighing down her red work lanyard.

“Ran into a quality issue across a few different brands I think. They kept giving false positives,” She chewed away at her gum and stocked a few bottoms of prenatal vitamins on the shelf, “there’s a Walgreens a few blocks down, next to that Starbucks. Maybe they carry some pregnancy tests that were unaffected by the recall. If your wife or daughter is in a hurry, urgent care might be another option.”

Except it wasn’t for his wife or daughter. Logan really had the worst fucking luck in the history of the universe.

“Right, thanks,” He grunted and walked out onto the busy street. It was a blistering hot day. Logan was sweating profusely by the time he got to that Walgreens. There was one lone early detection kit left on the shelf. Heart hammering in his chest, he grabbed it and made a beeline for the self-checkout. No one was paying him any attention, but Logan still breathed a sigh of relief when he tossed the pregnancy test into the white plastic bag. It was contributing to more sea turtle suffering, but he figured this was a rare instance where his immediate needs trumped their long term wellbeing.

He shoved his way out onto the sweltering sidewalk once more and—

“Hey, watch out man!”

Something barreled into him, overwhelmingly smelling of weed, unwashed boy, and stale pizza pockets. Logan’s precious plastic bag went flying out onto the road where a passing yellow cab immediately flattened its contents beneath its wheels. His head went blank, claws flexing out of his knuckles as he seized the petrified kid by the front of his NYU shirt and yanked him bodily from his lame ass scooter.

“You stupid motherfucker!”

“Uh,” Stark cleared his throat and squinted down at the police report through his tinted glasses, “so, it says here that you threatened to kill a college freshman, decimated his electric scooter and caused a fifty-eight year old man to, quote unquote, have a heart attack outside a Starbucks.”

Logan folded his arms over his chest and scowled. “Twenty years of pizza grease, no exercise, and those fucking vanilla cream frappes did that, not me.”

“And I suppose you won’t tell me what got you so worked up in the first place?”

“That’s right.”

“Fine,” Ironman massaged his forehead and stood, “your bail’s been paid. My attorneys will handle the rest. May I offer you a ride? Wherever you want to go.”

“Hang on,” Logan held up a finger and pulled his Stark Phone out of his pants pocket. It took a few minutes of googling to verify store inventory. Then he said, “take me to that Walgreens on 51 West 51st Street.”

Stark’s brows lifted. “Why?”

“My period’s late, I need to piss on a few plastic sticks and figure out if I’m knocked up or not,” Logan deadpanned, getting up from the creaky metal chair in the police interrogation room.

“Fine, don’t tell me then,” Stark rolled his eyes and kicked the door open.

Part of the issue was that he didn’t have normal periods. The healing factor reduced the week-long ordeal to mere seconds, and he bled on such a regular basis from other wounds that it was nearly impossible to tell what was soaking through his clothes. Not to mention, his body had probably given up trying to be normal at this point. Logan wished the healing factor also dealt with his heats, but the effect seemed to be shorter, more intense and unpredictable bursts of horniness as evidenced by that unhinged episode in the Void where he’d practically fractured Wade’s pelvis with how hard he was riding that lumpy misshapen dick in the backseat of the beat-up Honda. God, RIP to that poor polite fucker with the fabulous hair. They’d destroyed his minivan, gotten him killed and stolen his dog. Maybe this was divine punishment or something.

“Well, we’re here,” Stark’s voice cut through his wandering thoughts. Logan glanced up. They had indeed pulled up curb-side to the Walgreens like he had asked.

“Thanks,” He muttered and made to get out. Stark reached over and grabbed his wrist. He flinched back lightning quick when the claws came out.

“Sorry,” Ironman yelped, “Jesus fuck, man. Message received loud and clear. No touching without asking first!”

“What?”

“I just…” He ground his teeth and muttered in a rush of words, “I wanted to say that you don’t have to trust me, Logan, but I’m not the bad guy here. No matter what Steve tells you.”

“You think he’s talking shit about you behind your back?” Logan snorted. “What is this, middle school?”

“That’s not what I—”

“I don’t care,” He interrupted bluntly. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about your little fallout. That’s between the two of you, stop trying to get me to take sides.”

Stark bit his lip and glanced away. “Right.”

“Thanks for the ride, bub,” He said again, thumping the top of the car with a heavy fist and making Stark’s driver scowl.

There was no one inside the store except for a thin pimply kid manning the registers. Oh, and there was no self-checkout here, so fuck Logan’s life, really. He grabbed two of the boxes and briefly contemplated just running out of there without paying, but Logan had already gotten arrested once that morning, no reason to go back there so soon. Scowling, he shuffled his way over to the checkout and slapped the two pregnancy tests onto the counter. Well, four actually. They were twin packs. Enough to do a quadruple check just to be extra sure.

“That’ll be $52.98, sir,” Pimply kid said, keeping a straight face. “Cash or credit.”

He whipped out his wallet and slapped a credit card down, skin prickling with discomfort as he waited for the dumb kid to ring him up.

“Uh, s-sorry, but your card’s been declined,” He stammered, gingerly sliding it back. Logan pulled out the alternative card and tossed it over. That one also got declined. The only other thing left in his wallet was fifteen dollars in cash and a Hello Kitty sticker that kept appearing whenever Logan got rid of the prior one.

Logan gritted his teeth. “Is, is there like a fucking coupon or something?”

The kid gulped. “Ah, no, these aren’t on sale I’m afraid.”

He sounded afraid.

“I’ll come back at another time then,” Logan sighed.

He could hear the TV noise from the hallway. It sounded like some headache-inducing bubbly cartoon. There was a familiar dark haired man sitting on their couch with Mary Puppins when Logan slipped into the apartment, dressed in a black shirt and blue jeans this time, his hair pulled up in a loose man bun. It was scary how the fucker could effortlessly blend in with the rest of the middle-aged hipsters with man buns infesting this rat city. Oh, he was also missing his fake arm and chowing down on a red-white-and-blue popsicle.

“Please don’t tell me you sold your metal arm to Wade for that popsicle, because you were robbed,” Logan said, his hand still on the doorknob as Mary leapt down and ran over to greet him. The man tore his gaze from the Spongebob episode airing on their cracked television and slowly shook his head.

Logan picked up the dog and frowned. “Well, where is it then?”

He jerked his chin wordlessly at the dishwasher. Logan didn’t even know they had a dishwasher in their crappy apartment, let alone that it worked. He kept his gaze on the mute stranger and shouted in the general direction of the bedroom, “Wade, get your cancer-riddled ass out here. Now!”

“Oh, hey honey, you’re home early,” Wade came flouncing out in a hideous white lace nightgown and immediately thrust his face in the sweat-damp cotton over Logan’s chest. He inhaled deeply and let out a throaty moan, “God, I missed you girls so much. Never leave me.”

“What the fuck are you wearing?” Logan asked, shoving him back with a hand around Wade’s windpipe.

“I stole it from Blind Al. It’s like a bazillion years old and smells like mothballs and all of life’s regrets,” He said, fluttering non-existent lashes at Logan and twisting free of his grip to do a spinning twirl in the cramped living room, “do you like it? Are you feeling a mad urge to ravish me upon the nearest surface? Hold your horses, ya old pervert, we gotta wait till the guests leave.”

“What the fuck is this guy doing here again?” Logan asked, tearing his eyes away from Wade’s legs. “I thought you dealt with him.”

“Oh, we’re cool now.”

“What?”

“Remember how he shot me?” Wade chuckled, “yeah, dude thought I was fucking Spiderman.” He paused abruptly and frowned, “wait actually, that came out wrong. I only have sex with you. What I meant to say was—”

“I get it.”

“Anywho, that’s all cleared up and we’re besties now,” He shrugged and lifted the train of his nightgown to scratch at his left asscheek, “this lace is itchy as fuck. Man, the shit I go through to look sexy for you. Want a beer? There’s also pizza he brought as an apology for shooting me.”

“Maybe later,” Logan muttered, still staring at the stranger in their apartment, “what’s your name, bub?”

“Oh, I just call him Jessica,” Wade supplied, “but I could totally see him as a Sebastian, too. Like in the Little Mermaid. Point is, dude doesn’t talk much. We communicate through a series of grunts, glares, and nods.”

“Just,” Logan gritted his teeth, “shut up for a minute. And you, turn down the goddamn volume for the stupid cartoon. Are you mute and deaf?”

The guy fished out the remote wedged under his ass and pressed a few buttons. Spongebob’s irritating laugh got louder.

“You fuckin—”

“Mom, you’re embarrassing me in front of my new friend,” Wade whined, tugging at his arm and manhandling him into the kitchen area. He slotted a warm thigh between Logan’s legs and leaned in to say, “be nice.”

“What the hell is going on?” He hissed at Wade, angling his body in a way to still keep an eye on the guy, “and why the fuck are all the credit cards not working?”

“Aww shit, not again,” Wade banged his head into the fridge door, “but the man texting me promised he was a real Wakandan Prince this time, sweetpea. I was just trying to help.”

He’d laugh if he weren’t so pissed off. Instead of gifting the dickhead with an outward reaction, he shoved past Wade and stomped into the bathroom. Closing the door muffled much of the noise, and dunking his head under the running tap dealt with the rest. Logan counted under his breath until the ringing noise in his skull faded enough for him to think properly.

He still needed to get those goddamn tests. Well, unless—

Logan turned off the water. It had gotten quiet outside. He lifted his shirt to dab at the drops trickling down his neck and inspected his abdomen. He’d guesstimate about a month since he’d last gotten stabbed there. If something was growing inside of Logan, that little bundle of cells couldn’t be more than four weeks old and a quick claw to the stomach could get rid of it in a heartbeat. No one else had to know. They could just go on living life the way it was now.

Except, it wasn’t just a bundle of cells.

It’d be Wade’s and his, and if they were careful, that bundle of cells could grow into a little girl or boy. Granted, their hypothetical kid would be annoying as hell and probably suffering from severe ADHD straight out of the womb, but—

He heard a quiet tap at the door.

“Hey, peanut,” Wade called out, “I made Jessica leave. Are you ok?”

Peanut, now that’d be a great nickname for a baby. Fuck. It had to be the hormones taking over his brain, because Logan was not like this before he started banging Wade.

“‘M fine,” He mumbled, bending to splash some more water over his face. Logan kicked open the door and found Wade standing there, still wearing his Victorian era pillowcase. He gave Logan a lame little wave. God, he looked fucking ridiculous and somehow Logan still wanted to climb him like a tree.

“So, uh…did you have a nice day?” Wade asked in the awkward silence.

“Shut the fuck up and take off the damn dress,” He growled as he stepped out of the bathroom and pinned Wade against the wall.

“Holy shit,” Wade gasped, arching up and grinding his fourth load deep into Logan’s pussy. His hands flew to Logan’s waist when he clenched around that still-hard cock wedged in his gut.

“Stop, stop. Fuck, it hurts. Give me a sec,” Wade hiccuped. He was pouring sweat, eyes screwed tightly shut and quivering from the overstimulation. Logan reached down between Wade’s legs and pressed two fingers into his taint. He seized up with a pained shout and Logan felt his exhausted dick twitch, another weak dribble of come joining the rest of the mess stuffed inside of him. Satisfied for the time being, he ran his tongue over Wade’s thundering pulse and lapped at the thin layer of salt and sweat over his uneven skin.

Wade rubbed the dimples on Logan’s lower back and heaved a long sigh, “that’s what, seventeen gallons now? God, you are insatiable. I don’t think I’ve got a single drop left in these shriveled acorns.”

Logan caught a whiff of something past Wade’s familiar scent. It smelled like corn syrup and food coloring.

“How the fuck did that mute son of a bitch get melted popsicle all over the back cushions?” He muttered, getting up off of Wade’s softened dick to inspect the damage.

“Pretty sure that’s the least of our problems,” Wade said, peering down at the mixture of come and slick that had soaked through the fabric and padding beneath his bare thighs. He dabbed at the massive wet spot with the destroyed nightgown. “I’ll add a new sofa to the shopping list. Maybe we should get leather this time. Seems easier to wipe down than whatever this is. And as much as I would love to sustain you via vaginal injections, my swimmers aren’t that nutritious, so we should probably eat some actual food. I did a Costo run all by myself today. Are you proud?”

“Before or after you got scammed by your handsome Wakandan Prince? Is his name Thor?”

“Hey, I never said handsome,” Wade got up with a pout. “Don’t salt my wounds when I’m trying to be nice, kitten.”

Logan smirked. “Yeah, I could eat.”

“Night, Dorothy, you spicy bitch,” Wade blew a loud raspberry over Logan’s left breast and moved onto the right side for a dainty peck over his nipple, “night, Rose. Such a sweetie.”

There was a 24-hour pharmacy about thirty minutes walk from their apartment. Logan pulled up the address again as Wade slithered his way down south, “night, Blanche, my slutty little minx.”

He slammed his thighs shut before Wade could reach his cunt.

“Go to sleep,” Logan ordered, still scrolling on his phone.

“But, but Blanche didn’t get my goodnight kiss,” Wade whined, his head pinned securely between Logan’s legs.

He rolled his eyes and dragged the idiot up by the neck. “You can kiss her tomorrow. She’s still sore from this afternoon.”

“I’ll settle for a lil’ smooch from you, pookums,” The lunatic cooed, sticking out his scarred lips like a fish. “Come on, princess, don’t make me beg.”

Logan studied his horribly disfigured face with a grimace, “God, you are so fucking annoying.”

And then, he leaned in and did just that.

It had rained during the night, and the street lights lit up the swirling film of grease in the puddles of moisture collecting on the uneven sidewalk. Logan checked his wallet again to confirm that he’d brought enough cash this time and set off down the street. It didn’t take him long to realize that someone was tailing him. The quiet steps matched Logan turn for turn. So he quickly slipped into a narrow alley and waited for his stalker to catch up.

The steps sounded too light to be an adult male, he thought as he caught sight of an approaching shadow.

He smelled her before he actually saw her face. Logan pulled back his claws in the nick of time and staggered back.

“J-Jean?”

But it couldn’t be Jean. She was still a little girl in Wade’s reality. The Jean Grey in front of him was older, her fiery red hair spilling freely down her back and clad in their old X-Men uniform. She ran at him and threw her arms around Logan’s startled neck.

“What— how are you here?” He asked, pulling back to stare at her face.

“This,” Jean said and opened her palm to reveal a familiar bronze portal ring. The exact same kind Cassandra Nova had used to bring him and Wade back.

He retreated a step. “Where did you get that?”

“I borrowed it to bring you home,” Jean said.

“Jean,” Logan shook his head, “I’m staying here. You don’t want me back. I’ll fuck things up again.”

“Logan, this isn’t your world. You don’t belong,” She insisted, sliding her hand onto his forearm, “you’re part of the X-Men and one of us.”

“Thanks, but I’m gonna have to say no.”

“I wasn’t really asking,” Jean said as all the muscles in Logan’s body turned to lead. He was lifted bodily off the ground. She slid the ring onto her fingers and opened a swirling portal, “sorry for the rough treatment, but I’ll explain when we get back to the X-Mansion.”

Chapter Text

Logan woke to the sound of birds outside his bedroom window. Soft morning sun filtered in through dappled leaves. He laid there for a minute, left arm tucked under his head, and observed the dancing spots of gold over the lush green. It was pretty and not something you’d see in the noisy inner city, not that he’d ever live there.

Someone tapped on his door, and a young girl’s muffled voice shouted from the other side, “are you awake?”

Logan sat up, the duvet pooling around his waist, and rubbed a hand over his tired face. “Yeah.”

Kitty phased right through his door, already talking a mile a minute, “why are you still in bed? You promised we’d go practice my driving.” She checked her watch and frowned, “at seven, which was thirty minutes ago. Are you sick?”

“No,” He got up, rolling his stiff shoulders, “remind me again why I agreed to this?”

“I used up the airbags from that last crash and Scott got a concussion,” Kitty heaved a deep irritated sigh and trailed after him toward the bathroom, “no one else wants to risk becoming permanently wheelchair-bound like the Professor, so you’re the only adult left in the school that can supervise, Logan.”

“Because I literally can’t die?” He asked through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“Exactly. Because you literally can’t die.”

“What were you doing that gave Scott a concussion?”

“Parallel parking.”

“Jesus Christ, Kitty,” He groaned, a laugh bubbling up his throat, “go wait outside.”

“Why?” She demanded before gasping, “oh, you need to pee. Right. Don’t take too long, ok?”

-000-

“French toast?” Kurt popped over the moment he spotted Logan by the stairs.

“Hey, that’s my plate!” Bobby shouted from the kitchen. He grabbed two pieces and handed one to Kitty.

“So uh, no pop quiz today, right?” The blue-skinned boy asked anxiously.

“What pop quiz?”

“You said last week that there’d be a pop quiz,” Kurt reminded him, “but you never told us the date.”

“If I gave you the date, it wouldn’t be a ‘pop’ quiz,” Logan pointed out, taking the third and last piece of French toast and staring the kid dead in the eye. “That’s right, I want you all to be in constant fear of what’s coming.”

Rogue, who had been eavesdropping on their conversation over her spread textbook, cursed and went back to outlining her notes. Bobby reached over and stole Jubilee’s plate.

“That’s mine,” She yelled, “I already took a bite!”

“Too bad, it’s mine now.” He smirked, jumping out of grabbing distance with his stolen food. “Basketball this morning? Anyone?”

“I’m down,” Remy said, floating a fresh set of pancakes over to Jubilee and snapping warning fingers at Bobby when he eyed her breakfast again.

“Alright, Fast and Furious,” Logan wiped his sticky fingers down the sides of his jeans and turned to Kitty, “where’s my helmet?”

She finished tying her shoe and scowled, “don’t be a pussy.”

-000-

“How many traffic signs did she run over this time?”

“Seven,” Logan cracked his neck and winced, “eight if you count me in.”

“Kitty ran you over?” Scott asked, lifting an eyebrow. Jean stopped organizing Xavier’s desk and glanced up at them.

“Yeah, she forgot to put the car in park when we got back,” He sighed, stealing the cup of coffee at Scott’s elbow and draining it in two gulps, “I made the stupid mistake of standing within rolling distance.”

He turned and showed them the back of his tattered jeans.

Scott pulled out a few neatly folded bills out of his wallet, “get yourself a new pair. It’s on me.”

“And?” Logan took the outstretched money, but he didn’t let go. Scott’s other hand came up abruptly and seized his wrist in a death grip. Something strange rippled over his features. His face twitched.

“Logan, you—”

“And we thank you for taking one for the team,” Jean said drily, walking around the desk to squeeze Scott’s shoulder.

“Yes, thank you,” He repeated as a trail of red dripped down his chin. “Shit,” Scott cupped a hand under his bleeding nose and staggered to his feet, “this weather is awful on my sinuses. And clothes...”

“Here, tissue,” Jean reached over to pull a few out of the dispenser on Xavier’s desk.

“Thanks,” He leaned forward and dabbed at the drops of red smeared down the front of his shirt. Logan watched them, still holding Scott’s money loosely in one hand.

“Where’s the professor?” He asked.

“Off on an exchange semester at Cambridge, remember?” Jean said, “we talked about this, Logan. Pay attention.”

Did they talk about this? He couldn’t quite recall.

“You do still remember you have World History to teach at 10:30, right?” She asked. That he did know.

“I’m old but not that old,” Logan said, making a show of rolling his eyes at her. Scott let out a muffled laugh behind the bloody wad of tissues pressed against his face.

It was nine. He still had an hour and a half to kill before he had to deal with the kids. Logan wandered out onto the front steps of the mansion. Bobby and a few of the other boys were still playing basketball in the courtyard. He pulled out his wallet to slip the cash inside and paused at the sight of the sparkly pink Hello Kitty sticker poking out from one of the interior pockets. It had to be Kurt or Jubilee trying to prank him again, or maybe even Kitty, Logan thought as he yanked it out. There was some writing on the back cover in permanent marker. He flipped the sticker around and read: PROTECTION FOR WADE’S MOST PRESHEOUS MOEW MOEW. Half of the words were misspelled and whoever had penned the sentence had also drawn a few scattered lumpy hearts.

Who the fuck was Wade?

Logan searched his memory for any deranged or dyslexic toddlers in his life and came up with none. He traced the unevenly cut edge with the pad of his finger and felt a funny little twinge echo inside his chest. Against his better judgment, Logan tucked the sticker back inside his wallet and took the steps down to the lawn.

-000-

“Hitler’s suicide, along with these other major events marked the end of the Second World War in 1945,” Logan said, leaning his hip into the edge of the desk and nodding at Rogue when her hand shot up, “yes?”

“But he didn’t kill himself,” She said.

No, Logan knew for a fact that he had. He remembered the headlines. It had been splashed across every newspaper known to man. He’d fought in the damned war himself. He couldn’t possibly misremember such a pivotal moment in history. So much for all her hard prep for the pop quiz that never came. “Pretty sure he did, Rogue.”

A soft murmur swept through the dozen or so students scattered in the classroom. Kurt was rummaging around in his textbook, brows drawn and tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth. Logan reached for his own copy but Kurt beat him to it.

“She’s right,” The boy said, disappearing and reappearing at Logan’s elbow with his opened book. “See?”

Logan squinted down at the small print.

“Huh,” He said, scanning the information on the page. It said that the man had perished in a vehicle collision on his way out of Berlin. The bell rang at that moment, signaling the end of class. Kurt flashed Logan an apologetic smile and popped back to his desk to gather his belongings. Thrown off by the strange discrepancies, Logan grabbed his own textbook and flipped to the table of contents.

A drop of red splashed onto the page. It took him a few seconds to realize it was blood. He dabbed a finger under his nose and it came away wet. Logan never got nose bleeds without an inciting punch or kick. It just wasn’t a thing, no matter how dry the weather leading up to winter was. He looked up and saw Jean standing in the doorway. She smiled at him and beckoned for the departing students to follow her down the hall. Head reeling a little, Logan grabbed his things and left the empty lecture room.

-000-

“I have papers to grade,” Logan said and tried once more to get off the couch. He was wedged in between Kitty and Rogue, Jubilee hanging over his shoulder with a tub of popcorn balanced in the crook of her arm. She kept shoving kernels into his mouth everytime Logan opened his mouth to talk his way out of watching a movie with them.

“But you’re supposed to stay,” Kitty said, her grip tight around his bicep, “that’s what you agreed to when you signed up to become the faculty supervisor for the girl’s movie club.”

Rogue shrugged, “And you’re like our dad, so…”

“Hold on, what faculty supervisor?” Logan sputtered, “and these are not girls.”

He kicked at Bobby, who was sprawled out on his stomach on the rug in front of the TV.

“We are when it’s a girl’s movie night,” Remy winked and tossed his imaginary hair back with one hand.

“You don’t even go here,” Logan scowled at him, making Jubilee giggle. She fed him some more popcorn.

“You’ll love it,” Kitty promised, “it’s like one of the most classic love stories of all time.”

“What are we watching?” Logan sighed, reluctantly relaxing back into the couch.

“Pride and Prejudice. Have you seen it?”

“No, but Laura said I needed to watch it with Wade.”

Rogue turned to him, “who are Laura and Wade?”

“What?”

“You just said Laura told you to watch it with Wade.”

Bobby and Kurt twisted around to stare at him as well.

“Did I?” Logan frowned. He tried to catch his prior thought, but it was a futile task. “Huh, don’t know why I said that.”

“Well, you’ll definitely love the movie,” Kitty said again and pressed play on the remote.

Wade woke to an empty bed, and yes, in hindsight that should have been red flag numero uno; but life had been good to him in recent months and his guards were down after the steaming hot sex from the day before, so he just crawled out of bed and skipped off to shower.

Mary Puppins had taken a dump on the kitchen floor when Wade came bustling out, still dripping water and fully nude. He handled feeding their gremlin child and Logan was usually the one that took her out twice a day to go do her business by the dumpsters in the back alley. He’d clearly forgotten today, as his boots were gone from their usual spot beside the front door.

Wade cleaned up Mary’s turd, refilled her bowls, and found his cellphone. He shot Logan a text no good morning kiss??? am i in trouble??? with twelve crying emojis and waited a full minute, fingers drumming on the granite countertop. The apartment was grotesquely quiet without him there. Wade could hear his own fucking breath in the deathly silence, and the muted wheezing of his lungs filling with air, his heart beating in its fleshy cage and the occasional gut noises.

Fuck it.

He unlocked his phone again and dialed Logan’s number. It went to voicemail. Wade tried again. Something buzzed from their bedroom. He found Logan’s device in the gap between the bed and the nightstand.

His pookums never not took his phone to work.

“No, don’t fucking go there,” Wade muttered under his breath, “he’s not in trouble. Probably just out Avengering. Yeah, that’s it. Your wife’s a fucking superhero, this is normal.” He smacked himself on the forehead a few times, “stop it. Freaking out because you woke up alone is so not sexy.”

Tremors had started in his fingers, so Wade balled them into fists and got up to put on some clothes. He should take Mary Puppins to Al’s. Oh, maybe the old blind bat slipped and fell, and Logan had to rush her off to the ER. That was it. The dog was scratching at the door and whining when he stomped back out into the living room in one of Logan’s hoodies and a pair of pink Hello Kitty shorts.

“What is it, girl? Is it Mommy’s scent you’re onto?”

He unlocked the front door and Mary ran out, her nose stuck to the dirty green carpet lining the hallway. Wade chased her all the way down the stairs and out onto the street. It was mid-morning and the crowds were bustling. Mary Puppins paused to drink some dirty hotdog water from a puddle under a nasty looking food cart, darted across the street, and immediately tried to hump a working police dog.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” Wade shouted at the officer as he weaved through the foot traffic, “that horny molerat is mine. Sorry, we’re getting her spayed next month. There’s a big waitlist at the vet’s.”

-000-

Blind Al was perfectly fine.

That was good, he supposed. But still…

Fuck.

-000-

“Ness, I need you to talk me off the ledge here,” Wade met Vanessa outside her boring beige office building during the lunch hour. “Please tell me I’m just being paranoid and clingy.”

Her frown deepened as he sped through the series of events since waking up that morning.

“I think you are justified in being worried,” She said cautiously, “but did you check with the Avengers or maybe even the X-Men? Has Laura seen him?”

Steve’s phone pinged, the sound amplified painfully loud in the quiet conference room. Thor’s head whipped in his direction as he quickly plucked his device from the glass table. It was a text message from Bucky.

Come downstairs, it read in his usual cryptic and unhelpful style.

I’m in a meeting, Steve typed back.

He was. Thor had brought a handful of aliens to the tower, and Steve was still wrapping his mind around the brand new concept of talking fauna. Even the foul-mouthed raccoon with anger issues and drinking problems that had accompanied the “I am Groot” tree-thing had paled in comparison.

He sent the text message and waited an additional two seconds before shooting a slew of followup questions Bucky’s way: Are you in trouble? Did you get arrested? Is Sam not with you? What’s downstairs?

Bucky responded with the same two words, now accompanied by a knife emoji and blood emoji.

“Tinder date?” Tony asked sarcastically when he excused himself and stood. Steve gave him a stern look. His smirk widened, “oooh, it’s Grindr.”

Thor frowned. “I sense hostility amongst friends.”

“Calm down, blondie, just a bit of sarcasm,” Tony said as Steve pushed his way out of the conference room.

He took the elevator down to the ground level and walked out onto the busy street. There was a guided tour happening right in front of the Avengers building. Steve ducked behind a towering vase just in time and bumped right into Bucky who was already crouched there with a horribly scarred man in a gray hoodie.

“Oh my God, sir, are you ok?” Steve asked, squinting at him. He had to be in excruciating pain from all those angry and raw-looking skin lesions. “Buck, did you kidnap this poor man from the burn unit?”

“No,” Bucky said.

“What the fuck?” The bald man twisted to stare at him. “You talk?”

“Yeah, but don’t tell your guy. I want to see how long he thinks I’m mute.”

“That’s mean, Jessica.”

“It’s funny as hell. He gets that jumpy vein on the side of his head.”

“Stop trying to give my beautiful wife a rage aneurysm.”

“I’m sorry, who are you and what is going on?” Steve asked.

“Look Johnny, I don’t have time for this,” He fisted the front of Steve’s shirt and dragged him uncomfortably close, “the sexy center of my lame little universe is missing and I am rapidly running out of patience here.”

“This is Wade, and he can’t find Logan,” Bucky summarized, tucking both hands into his jacket pockets.

“Oh, you’re the roommate he keeps complaining about.” He didn’t recognize the guy without the red suit and police sirens. “I’m Steve, by the way.”

“God, shut up already about your insanely long backstory,” Wade rolled his eyes and groaned, “we don’t have time for this shit!”

“I only told you my first name.”

“Is he here?” Bucky asked.

“I don’t think so," Steve pulled out his Stark Phone, "but I can check with Tony’s AI. Maybe there’s camera footage of his last whereabouts.”

“Yeah, do that,” Bucky said as Wade pulled out his own phone. It was in a hot pink Barbie case covered with shiny plastic rhinestones.

“Fuck,” He said, scrolling through the text messages, “he’s not at Chuck’s, either. Alright, this calls for drastic measures. I’m gonna need to pay those TVA sons of bitches another visit.”

“What’s the TVA?” Steve asked, but both of them ignored his question and started to walk off. “Bucky, where are you going?”

“To help him find his guy. Wanna come?”

-000-

“Logan lives like this?” Steve breathed as he took in the messy apartment, “that poor man, no wonder he drinks so much.”

“Welcome, welcome,” Wade muttered, sweeping a few empty shell casings under the couch with his foot and plucking something alive off of the floor. He shoved it into Steve’s chest, “here, hold my kid and make sure she doesn’t accidentally swallow a bullet.”

Bucky stepped past them and made a beeline for the fridge.

“Buck,” He hissed as Wade wandered off into the other room, “don’t steal their food without asking first. What is wrong with you?”

Bucky ignored him and pulled a Captain America themed popsicle out of the freezer. It even had Steve’s stupid smiling face on the wrapper. “Want one?”

“No, you put that back!”

The dog licking his chin was wheezing and vibrating like a boiling kettle. It sounded not unlike one of his asthma episodes pre-serum.

“How do you know each other again?” Steve asked, adjusting his slipping grip around the strange little thing. Wade’s dog was slightly damp for some reason. “And why does he keep calling you Jessica?”

“We’re in a fight club,” Bucky said ambiguously around his multicolored popsicle.

“First rule of fight club, Jessica!” The man screamed from somewhere in the apartment. Steve heard a door slam.

“Oh right, it’s not a fight club, it’s a book club,” Bucky corrected himself.

“Uh-huh,” Steve decided to play along, “what book are you reading?”

“The bible,” He lied with his purple-stained tongue.

“So it’s bible study.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re making new friends, I guess,” Steve said as the dog in his arms let out a wet fart.

A toilet flushed, and Bucky’s strange new pal emerged from the bathroom decked out in that familiar red and black suit. There was still what looked to be copious amounts of dried blood caked all over his torso and a little bit of duck tape to patch up the worst of the rips.

Wade zipped up his pants and adjusted his crotch. “Alright ladies, time to go shake down some TVA bastards and get my angel baby back.”

Chapter Text

“The hairnet looks good on you, Mr. Darcy. I’d like twelve scoops of whatever that brown slop is over there.”

Paradox looked up, blue eyes falling on Wade who gave a little wave on the other side of the plexiglass. He watched the man’s face speedrun through the five stages of grief before finally backtracking to anger.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Paradox snarled, knuckles going white around the metal ladle in his grip.

“I need your help,” He said as the TVA worker in line behind him coughed pointedly. Paradox threw some of the muddy substance onto Wade’s plastic tray with a scowl. He poked a gloved finger in the goop and smeared some of it over the mask covering his mouth.

“Is this fucking applesauce? Tastes worse than prison food, and I have actually been to prison.”

“I know, I’ve seen your flaming dumpster of a life, Mr. Wilson,” Paradox spat. They moved onto the next window where he placed two pathetic looking mini hotdogs onto Wade’s plate, “why are you here? You’ve got a new anchor being, your world is saved.”

“It’s not anymore. Logan’s missing and I need your help.”

A few bruised cherry tomatoes got thrown onto his beige tray next. Paradox’s lips curled. “Maybe he ran away because he couldn’t stand being around you.”

Wade smushed a tomato with his forefinger and watched the seeds and red juices ooze out. “That’s not it.”

“Well, I can’t. In fact, you made sure of that by getting me demoted to this meaningless position ladling garbage at the canteen for the rest of my existence.” Paradox rang him up at the register. “That’ll be $5.95.”

“For all this?” Wade gestured down at the assortment of nutritionless items.

“Yes, we pride ourselves in perfectly mirroring the quality and quantity of the average American public school lunch in the 1980s. Fun fact, ketchup was considered a vegetable then.”

He tossed the plate at Paradox’s head and bodily dragged him out from behind the counter. A few alarmed shouts echoed in the silent cafeteria. The man in line behind Wade squirreled off with his tray of food.

“You didn’t pay for that, Jerry,” Paradox wheezed, scratching at Wade’s masked face and forearms, “come back!”

“What are you doing out here?”

Logan peered down at Jean from his spot in the tree and shrugged, “couldn’t sleep. What are you doing out here?”

“You couldn’t sleep,” She said, choosing to climb her way up to join him instead of taking the easy route. Logan caught Jean’s hand and tugged, not expecting her to come spilling into his lap, long auburn locks tickling the side of his face as their limbs tangled in the process. Logan supposed it would have thrilled him to touch her like this, once. He’d been a lonely lost mess then, desperate for any form of emotional intimacy. He felt nothing now looking at her striking beauty under the cold moonlight.

“Careful,” Logan said, taking his hand back once she regained her balance.

“What’s on your mind?” Jean asked in the silence that followed.

“I don’t know,” He stared off into the distance. The Xavier mansion was dark, save for a few dimly lit windows. Maybe there were others who couldn’t sleep. “Do you ever just…feel like your mind’s forgotten something but your heart hasn’t? And it keeps tugging and tugging at you.” He laughed awkwardly, “it’s stupid, I really shouldn’t have watched that touchy feely movie with the kids tonight. Hell, Wade’d probably tell me I’m going through menopause or something.”

Huh, there it was. That name. He’d said it again.

“I don’t get it,” Jean murmured, “you’ve only known him for a few months, why do those memories keep resurfacing?”

It was such an odd thing to say that he turned to look at her, “what?”

“It’s been less than twenty four hours and I’ve had to wipe you twice,” She said, “none of the others gave me this much trouble.”

“Wipe me? What are you talking about?” The back of Logan’s neck prickled. He jerked back when Jean tried to touch him, “don’t.”

There was something very wrong about Jean, about everything. His head was reeling. Logan had to go, he needed to collect his thoughts in private and—

“What do you think?”

“It’s a fucking shoebox, dickhead.”

“It’s our fucking shoebox, kitten. Your name’s on the lease, too. Now help me put these IKEA pieces together.”

That was Wade. His Wade. They’d moved in together, bought freaking furniture together.

“I said don’t touch me,” He growled as she moved once more. Logan unsheathed his claws. It was a warning really, he wouldn’t actually use them on her.

Couldn’t.

She smiled, as if sensing his thoughts. “I don’t need to touch you, Logan. Trust me, everything is going to be alright. Don’t fight this.”

And then—

It was storming outside when he opened his eyes. Logan glanced at the digital display on the nightstand — Tuesday 7:30 AM. The sky was pitch black, heavy drops of rain plinking against the window glass. He sat up and winced at the painful throb in his head. Logan didn’t feel rested despite the full night’s sleep. This afternoon’s danger room training was going to be a bitch to run, he could just tell.

Groaning, Logan got up out of bed to get ready for the day.

“I can’t help you, Mr. Wilson. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, my access to the classified files has been revoked, and—” He stopped talking and stared at something behind Wade’s shoulder, “my God, you…you brought your Captain America into the TVA. And the Winter Soldier. They can’t be here. Why is no one sounding the alarm?”

“They tried,” Jessica shrugged, twirling one of the disappearing sticks he’d liberated from an unconscious guard and kicking a stray helmet out of his way.

Johnny lifted a hand, “Look, we’re not here to hurt anyone.”

That was technically true. People were dead, which one could argue was no longer under the umbrella term of “hurt.” They’d discussed such philosophical underpinnings in the slowest elevator ride since the Wolverine Origins movie up to the TVA cafeteria, well, it mostly consisted of Johnny wringing his hands like a grieving war widow and Wade telling him to shut the fuck up or he was gonna stab him, too.

“Just tell us where Logan is and we’ll be on our way.” The blond bimbo put a hand on Paradox’s shoulder, “please.”

His jaw went slack, red crawling up the side of his neck as he sputtered, “I ca— Captain Rogers, don’t look at me like that.”

Johnny did something with his face. A few seconds ticked by.

“Ok, fine!” Paradox shouted, blushing furiously.

“What just happened?” Wade asked.

“You know how some women press their tits in your face and—”

“My wife does that.”

“—the lizard brain between your legs just takes over and you agree to random shit because you’ve been low-key possessed by your horny downstairs roommate?”

“Yes, Timmy is obsessed with the girls.”

“Well, this is like that,” Jessica concluded, “except it’s your conscience and there are no tits involved, and it somehow makes you feel guilty as fuck if you don’t do what he says when he looks at you with that expression.”

“There are some tits involved,” Johnny gave a one-shouldered shrug. All eyes went to where the white cotton fabric stretched obscenely over his voluptuous pecs. The solitary button resting in the valley between those mighty breasts was holding on for dear life. A not-so-careful inhale would probably send it ricocheting like a speeding bullet into an unsuspecting eye or mouth and kill a guy. It’d be a hell of a way to go. Paradox whimpered in the back of his throat. Wade was the first to recover.

“Subpar ones, Johnny,” he told the man once he regained his wits, “I’ve seen better, and yes, they belong to my precious peanut, who is still not fucking here while you and Tom from Succession get your weird flirt on.”

“How are you certain he’s not still in your reality?” Paradox asked, sidling ever closer to Johnny.

“Just do the fucking search, man,” Jessica said before Wade could answer.

“Fine, five minutes,” Paradox said, “that’s all you get to retrieve him, Mr. Wilson, if he’s even gone that is.”

He twisted a few chrome knobs on the wall of buttons and typed in a long sequence of something and pressed enter. They gathered around the screens and watched as multicolored lines snaked across the displays.

“Are you married?” Paradox turned to Johnny and asked.

“What?”

“This takes a while,” He gestured to the slow crawl on the screens before adding, “I don’t see a ring.”

“That’s because there is no ring.”

“My superiors used to say that the hardest battles are given to the strongest warriors,” He said, “I suppose that is why you are the anchor being in so many realities, Captain Rogers. I’ve followed your journey, we all have at the TVA. You are quite possibly the OG hero, and you deserve to be happy.”

The man’s mouth twitched, “I’m not sure getting married will accomplish that, but thank you.”

“You know, Iron Man is a hot contender for the No.1 anchor being, and the Wolverine,” He prattled on, “fun fact, in some of the universes, your variants are in a relationship.”

“Wait, Logan?” Wade sputtered. “It can’t be. That’s too much boobage between two people. Their world would implode.”

“No, I meant Stark.”

“Ew.” Johnny’s face crumpled in disgust. Jessica snorted.

“What? I’m not homophobic, I just don’t like Tony that way.”

“That’s just the odd reality or two, and he’s sometimes a woman,” Paradox assured him, “it’s not important and certainly not the majority of cases.”

“What is the majority?” Wade’s murder buddy asked.

“Peggy Carter,” Paradox tapped a few more keys before giving him a contemplative look. “And quite often, you, actually.”

“Huh,” Jessica said, folding his arms over his chest, expression full of skepticism.

“Honestly, we should. It would knock me down a tax bracket since you are essentially unemployed, Buck.”

“But he’s not unemployed,” Wade interjected helpfully, “we’re swimming in—”

“Don’t,” Jessica snapped, glaring daggers at him.

“What are you two swimming in?” Johnny frowned suspiciously. “Bucky, are you back to taking up mercenary jobs again with your new friend?”

“No!” Red crawled up the sides of Jessica’s neck.

Their resident Ken doll turned to Wade.

“No?” Wade echoed, peering between them.

“I can’t believe you two,” Johnny said, shaking his head. And yeah, Wade felt that invisible screwdriver twist in his chest at the reproachful look on the guy’s stupidly handsome face, oh guilt, that was new, and bizarrely, it made his tummy hurt a little as well.

“We’re gonna have a conversation about this when we get back,” He said firmly and wrestled the TVA zap stick out of Jessica’s hands, “no, you’re not gonna disappear yourself to avoid talking to me. It’s going on the fridge calendar, so it’s final.”

“Goddamnit, I hate you so much.”

“Language!”

“What. The. Fuck.” Paradox pushed past them to stare at the red dots cropping up all along the web of multicolored lines running across the screens. “How is this happening?”

“How is what happening?” Wade asked, “did you find him?”

“No, but he’s not the only one that’s gone missing from his reality. These,” He swept a hand over the flashing dots, “are all empty spots where someone has been plucked from their world. How peculiar…” Paradox swallowed, his eyes flickering quickly across the displays. A strange excitement stole over his face, “yes, this is massive. Someone has been taking variants across the multiverse undetected, and I am the one who discovered this.”

“Where’s Logan,” Johnny asked.

“Forget about Logan, I’m getting my job back and probably a promotion,” He pumped a triumphant fist in the air but quickly flinched back with a shriek as Johnny jammed the stun baton under his chin faster than Wade could draw his own weapon.

“Tell us where Logan is,” He said, “now.”

Something exploded in the distance. Logan shielded his eyes from the simulated sentinel blast as Angel swept Bobby up into the air just in time to avoid his teammate getting flattened by a flying car.

“Contain the damage,” He yelled into his earpiece, “don’t just run around like headless chicken. Teamwork and all that useless shit Scott's been teaching. Kitty, that’s still the wrong direction, go that way. No, that way! Use your goddamn eyes, girl.”

“He tripped me!” She shouted, pointing at Kurt and his tail.

“I didn’t mean to,” He wailed back as the behemoth swiped at them with a massive metal hand. Logan whisked out his claws but a beam of red blasted through the sentinel’s fingers, beating him to the punch, and Kurt teleported Kitty out of harm’s way.

“Logan, we need to talk,” Scott said behind him.

“You’re not supposed to be in here, I’m leading this afternoon’s session,” He twisted to scowl at Cyclops, “and where’s your uniform? You keep nagging me about wearing it. I forgot how fucking tight it is, feels like sausage casing.”

“I know you loathe being told what to do, but you need to do exactly what I say,” Scott dragged him down behind a smoking taxi, “act normal, she might be watching.”

“Who? What are you on abou—”

“Don’t look at me,” Scott hissed, blasting another smaller sentinel that was sneaking toward them from behind, “Logan, you don’t belong here and you are in danger.”

Something scratched at the back of Logan’s brain. He frowned, tugging at his collar, “I thought our pissing contest was over, Summers. I’m really not trying to steal your girl, I swear.”

“That’s not it. I mean you don’t belong in this reality, Logan. Jean, she took you from somewhere else and put the memories that belonged to the Wolverine in her universe into your head. The problem is, it doesn’t stick because of your healing factor and—” He felt forward suddenly, fingers clawing at his throat and gasping for breath, “Logan, run!”

“Scott!”

He was flung into the air to crash land on his back hard enough to knock the wind out of Logan’s lungs. Coughing and vision swimming, he crawled upright and caught sight of Jean standing under a lone streetlight in the ruins of the fake New York City.

“You promised, Scott,” She said as he staggered to his feet.

“Enough is enough, Jean,” Scott sighed, “I can’t keep doing this, and you can’t keep wiping everyone over and over again. Maybe it’s time to…”

“No,” She shook her head, “no, I can make this right. You said you believed in me. You said you loved me.”

“I do,” His shoulders slumped, “you know, when you first found me in my reality, I was all alone, ready to finally put an end to my miserable existence. And then you showed up, gave me a reason to go on, and I thought that maybe we could start anew, that you and I were enough, but clearly I was wrong.”

“What the fuck are you two talking about?” Logan asked, staring between them. The simulation had faded away and the kids were standing around, motionless, their faces vacant. He limped over to Kitty and touched her cheek. She gave no outward reaction. “What did you do to them?”

“They’ll be fine,” Jean muttered, “everything will be fine.”

“Yeah,” Scott clutched his side and let out a bitter laugh, “just start over, right? Find a new one. I mean, no one can stop you.”

Logan dreaded the answer but he asked anyway, “Chuck’s not off on an exchange semester at Cambridge, is he?”

“I took care of that,” Jean said. She moved closer to him, “Logan, you were supposed to be it. I was going to be done, once and for all. Your X-Men were all dead and you were alone, just like Scott.”

“But I’m not,” He said, frowning. “I have…”

He wasn’t alone, he had people, family to go back to, and a special someone. Logan knew there was someone, felt that bone-deep tug. He just couldn’t for the life of him remember who.

“Jean, give Logan his memories back and let him go,” Scott pleaded, “you don’t need to put your world back to the way it was before.”

“You say that because it wasn’t your fault that it broke in the first place,” She snapped, twisting to face him, unshed tears brimming in her eyes, “you weren’t the one that lost control and killed every single person you’ve ever loved.”

“They’ll come for him,” Scott shook his head, “like they did for the others.”

“And I will take care of that, too,” Jean said, “I always do.” She cocked her head then, as if listening to something Logan could not hear, “huh, looks like they might already be here.”

“No more deaths,” Scott said, his tone imploring, “please.”

“I won’t need to, not with this guy,” She smiled, her gaze flickering to Logan who had bolted for the exit. “You can hang back for this one, Logan.”

He was pulled off his feet once more, growling and cursing, claws out. Jean pulled something from her pocket and a sparkling portal split open the air. Logan’s heart sank.

“Jean,” He said, “don’t do this.”

“It’s just for your safety while we handle the intruders,” She promised and flung him into the realm on the other side.

Logan landed on all fours, loose rocks and sand crunching beneath his boots. He immediately leapt at the constricting ring of gold, but it was too late. It sealed shut a heartbeat too soon and he slammed into the tree behind, rattling the ancient thing and sending leaves raining down on his furious shoulders.

“Fuck!”

Sinking his claws into the poor tree didn’t improve his situation but he stabbed it anyway, snarling under his breath until the thick trunk split under its own weight and fell with a thunderous crack. Birds took flight in the distance, and it was only then that he realized he was now far far away from civilization. It was also dark. Logan lifted his head and sniffed the air. Past the scent of his own sweat, he could smell more of himself. Except, it was faded and weeks old. He followed the faint trail to a nearby thicket of grass and found a tattered red flannel shirt there, dried stiff with brown blood.

And then, he heard the sound of pounding feet and heavy breaths. Logan whipped out his claws as something leapt at him from the darkness. A loud rumbling growl. The snap of teeth against his ear. It smelled like him, just more rancid and unwashed. He stabbed both sets of claws into the thing’s torso and heard it roar in pain. Sharp claws sank into his own bicep, but it didn’t feel smooth and surgical the way adamantium moved through flesh. Whatever it was dragged and snagged, sending shockwaves of pain through his shoulder. Logan kicked his attacker off with both feet and scrambled back. His eyes fell to the protrusions on the guy’s hands. Pearly white bone, like the ones he’d had before Weapon X. His own face, crusted with dirt and matted hair, glared back at him with bared teeth.

“What the fuck?” He panted, rolling his aching shoulder back as the punctures closed. The bleeding gashes on his attacker’s ribs were also healing. And he was butt-ass naked except for a fragile strip of tattered denim hanging between his hairy thighs. Logan tried again for verbal communication, “Look, I don’t want to fight you, bub. Do you know where we are?”

His hairier, feral counterpart let out another chest-rattling growl and charged him once more only to be stopped by a flaming arrow that pierced through his thigh. Whimpering and pawing at the fire, he retreated into the grass. Logan crouched and braced for another projectile from the mysterious third party, but nothing came.

“Nighttime is not the best time to be out and about around these parts,” A voice called out, and he heard a horse exhale nervously from somewhere within the trees, “easy girl, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He squinted in the direction of the sounds and saw a tall figure on horseback emerge from the shadows holding a crossbow.

“You can put the hand knives away, stranger,” The man said, tipping his hat down at Logan in greeting, “they don’t do much around here, ‘cause we all got ‘em.” It was his own face peering back, old and lined and weathered. He smiled past the thick gray beard, “I’d ask your name, but something tells me I already know. Walk with me, Logan. It’s not safe to talk here.”

“There are children here,” Steve whispered as they snuck down the empty hallway of the Xavier School. He could see them sitting at their desks – some of the kids as young as eight or nine judging by their appearance – looking bored as they listened to the figure up on the podium. “Can we not immediately resort to violence this time?”

“Goddamn Johnny, again with the incessant nagging,” Wade groaned, pausing to glare at him through the mask, “what the fuck is wrong with you? Have you ever seen me hurt a child?”

“No,” Steve hissed back, “but you haven’t stopped killing since I met you!”

“Shut up,” Bucky swatted at them both as a beautiful white-haired woman walked past their hiding place, her arms weighed down with half a dozen textbooks. He tapped the little rectangular device that Paradox had given them to track down their Logan, “do either of you know how to work this thing? Why’s the flashing dot gone?”

“Did you sit on it? Buck, I told you to leave it alone.”

“I didn’t sit on it, asshole. I’m over a hundred fucking years old, I know shit about technology. Why am I the one holding onto this in the first place?” He jerked a thumb at the back of Wade’s head, “shouldn’t it be the crazy millennial over there?”

“You’re the only one with big enough pockets in your pants.”

“Not my fault you’re wearing women’s jeans.”

“They’re not women’s jeans, James Buchanan Barnes. They shrunk in the wash because you refuse to do the laundry properly. We have a system for a reason, and it’s not that hard!”

“Really, you’re bringing this up now?”

“May I ask what you are doing here?” Someone said over their shoulders, putting an abrupt end to what would have spiraled into a full-blown petty argument. Steve turned to see a young woman with bright red hair at the end of the corridor. She smiled as Wade unsheathed his katanas, “I don’t suppose you bothered signing in at the front desk.”

Chapter Text

“What took you so long? Was there trouble?”

“Not exactly.”

Logan followed his older variant into the cabin and immediately locked eyes with another even older version of himself sitting at the dining table. He even had on a pair of crooked reading glasses as he squinted up at them, a cup of tea sitting by his elbow, working on what looked like a half-filled crossword with a pencil nub.

“You went and dragged in another one?” The old geezer groaned at the sight of Logan, “I told you there ain’t room for more flea-covered dickheads with anger issues up in this shack of ours.”

“Ours, huh?” The one that had rescued him repeated, lifting his eyebrows with a faint smile. He set his hat on a hanger and shrugged out of his weather-beaten coat. There were at least three more layers of flannel underneath. The other guy was also wearing flannel. Logan stuck out like a sore thumb in his yellow and blue uniform.

“Logan, meet Logan,” He said, gesturing at the scowling geriatric Wolverine and wandering over to wash his hands at the sink.

“Let me guess, you’re also Logan.”

“I go by James, actually,” He said, toweling his clean hands dry and stealing old Logan’s cup of tea, “and that’s Jimmy over there.”

A figure had emerged from elsewhere within the cabin, not wearing flannel and jeans thankfully, but—

“Holy shit, it’s literally two and a half men,” Logan remarked before his brain could stop his mouth.

“You think you’re funny, bub?” The hairy manlet growled, flexing his claws out. The top of his head barely reached Logan’s chest.

“I’m fucking hilarious,” He replied, “and what are you? Two racoons stacked on top of one another? No, actually that might be taller.”

“Fuck you, you son of a—”

“Not here, Jimmy,” James snapped before the fun-sized man could come at Logan like a rabid squirrel on LSD, “you two wanna tussle, take it outside. I’m sick of cleaning blood out of the carpets.” He pulled out a hunk of something wrapped in wax paper from the rusty fridge and asked, “you hungry?”

“No,” Logan grimaced, still peering around their curious encampment, “what is this place?”

“It’s where all the Wolverines that don’t fit Jean’s memory of him go to die,” Jimmy said darkly. He took a seat at the table and glowered at Logan, “get comfortable, asshole. You’re stuck here forever now.”

“Are all of you from different realities?”

“No, this is my home turf,” James said from where he was stirring canned vegetables into a dented pot, “she started dumping Wolverines in my neck of the woods a few years back. Haven’t stopped since. Besides Logan and Jimmy, there’s another much larger group of ‘em a few miles north of here. They’re more on the violent side, we don’t interact much.”

“Like the naked one I ran into?”

“No, those ones are different. I think Jean might have unintentionally scrambled a few minds beyond repair in the early days. They pretty much just attack anything that moves.”

The old man started coughing then, deep body-wracking wheezing noises that made Logan’s lungs ache in sympathy. James sighed and gestured at Logan, “can you keep an eye on this. Don’t let it bubble over. I’m gonna grab his meds.”

He took the pair of readers, jammed them over his nose and disappeared into the back. Jimmy filled a cup with water and handed it over. Logan absently pushed the ladle through the meat stew on the stove and watched them out of the corner of his eye. He’d caught a red smudge in the handkerchief the old man had stuffed over his mouth to muffle the sounds.

“Take two of each, wash ‘em down with water,” James instructed when he reemerged, still squinting at the tiny faded letters on the medicine bottles through their shared pair of reading glasses.

“Let me check.” Jimmy grabbed them from him and examined the labels again, “I think you need three of these.”

He watched them count out the colorful little pills until the pot let out an angry hiss. Logan lifted the boiling stew off the flames and handed cooking privileges back to James when he hurried over.

“So, you’ve never tried to leave?” He asked the two at the table.

“How?” The tiny one gave him the stink-eye, “you got one of them portal rings, bub? Didn’t think so.”

“What about your X-Men? Surely they would notice you missing and come looking.”

“They would,” Old Logan agreed, slumping back in his chair, “if they were still alive. I’m the last one left.” He rubbed a scarred hand over the side of his face, “Hell, I had a foot in the grave when she found me. Didn’t even get to say goodbye to Laura and the kids.”

“Laura?” The name gave Logan pause.

“You knew her?”

“I think so,” He grimaced, trying to pull up an image of her in his head and failing, “but my memory’s all fucked up.”

“You’ll get it back,” James said, handing out bowls of stew, “there’s a quicker method via shotgun to the brain, but that only works on the ones who don’t have metal skulls.”

“Jesus, how many Wolverines have gone through here?”

“Enough for me to figure some things out,” He said as he sat down next to Jimmy with his own food, “I never took part in the Weapon X program, you see. Got to spend a mostly unbothered life out in nature with my wife Kayla.”

“What happened to her?” Logan asked, spooning out a chunk of mystery meat and giving it a quick sniff. It smelled like deer or some similar game animal. He put it in his mouth and chewed.

“She passed from old age,” He said simply.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, that’s a blessing compared to what fate’s got in store for us.”

“And you?” Logan turned to the little guy.

“What about me?” Jimmy asked, still scowling.

“Were you an X-Man?” Logan asked.

“I was,” He admitted after a pause and lowered his gaze back to his bowl. And they didn’t come for me. He didn’t say the words, but Logan heard them anyway.

“There’s gotta be a way out of here,” He said to the old man later that evening as they washed the dishes under the thin stream of water dripping from the kitchen tap.

His older variant muffled another lung-rattling cough against his elbow and shook his head, “even if we could, where would we go? It’s all fucked up where I was. They’d poisoned the food, and there were no more mutants. Charles was the only one left from the school, and I…I ended up failing him, too.” He rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, “so yeah, dying here is better. Really.”

“I brought some extra sheets out,” James called over at Logan, “you can try and squeeze on the pullout with Jimmy, but he might stab you in the middle of the night.”

“The floor is fine,” He replied, “I doubt I’ll get any sleep either way.”

They flew through the Timedoor in an explosion of limbs and entrails, Wade’s bodily fluids sleuthing over the waxed floor as Steve and Bucky slid to a sticky stop against a computer console. He wiped a shaky hand over his wet face and spat out some of Wade’s blood and the odd bit of bone matter.

“Holy shit,” Paradox raced over, his shoes slipping in the spreading mess, “what the fuck happened to you?”

Steve barely heard him over the deafening ringing noise in his skull. He turned to Bucky. What was left of Deadpool was strewn all over his lap.

“Buck,” He managed to gasp past the overwhelming urge to vomit.

“No, come on, open your fucking eyes, man,” Bucky muttered, lifting Wade’s head and patting his cheek. Stuff came sloshing out of the bottom and the still-connected piece of spine finally broke off. Steve groaned and looked away, stomach rolling violently.

“It’s Jean Grey,” He said once he caught his breath, “she tore him apart with her mind or something. We didn’t even have time to react.”

“Wade, quit dicking around,” Bucky said again and shook the severed head in his lap.

“Bucky, stop mutilating his corpse!” He didn’t understand Bucky’s borderline delusional insistence that Deadpool could somehow bounce back from what Steve could only describe as total disintegration of his physical form. Or maybe there were ghosts. He honestly wouldn’t be surprised at this point.

“I think it’s pretty clear that this is above our paygrade,” He got up on his knees and wiped the fresh coat of blood off of his palms, “you’d need a whole army of, I don’t know, indestructible immortal beings or something to stop her.”

“Hmm, funny you should say,” Paradox helped him to his feet, “we have exactly that in the trash heap. Although, I will need to go through the proper channels with this request.” He gestured at the nearby water cooler, “in the meantime, would you like some cucumber water while you wait?”

Steve swayed on his feet, “what?”

“Here.” He watched Paradox walk over to the water dispenser, tracking bright red footprints across the brown-green carpet, and fill up two paper cups. The TVA employee placed them in Steve’s hands and smiled, “it’s ok, you’re in shock, Captain Rogers. You’ll get over it.”

Something dripped from his hair into the cucumber water and stained it pink. Steve took a seat on the plush sofa in the hallway next to Bucky. He was still cradling Wade’s head in his arms. Half a dozen security guard-looking TVA employees marched past with their riot shields and stun batons. None of them paid the two any attention. One of the sanitation workers was already starting on mopping the floor and getting rid of Deadpool’s scattered body parts.

“Do you, ah,” Steve swallowed past the massive lump in his throat, “do you want cucumber water, Buck?”

“No,” Bucky grunted.

“I’m so sorry about your friend,” He tried to say. “That was…horrible.”

“He’s not dead. He doesn’t die.”

Steve turned to him, “Bucky, he doesn’t have a body anymore. Hell, there’s,” he grimaced and chanced a peek at the head in Bucky’s lap, “brain matter leaking out of the base of the…”

“I chopped his arm off once,” Bucky said flatly, “it grew back like a crab’s leg. He’s gonna grow back, Steve.”

“Ok,” Steve nodded, not knowing how else to respond. They sat for a while in silence, Deadpool’s blood drying over Steve’s shirt and caking his hair into a hard helmet atop his head. And then, he said, “I can’t believe she’d go to such great lengths...”

“Grief’s a powerful thing,” Bucky muttered, “combine that with all the guilt and trauma. Not to mention her crazy-ass powers?”

“It’s still not right,” Steve shook his head, “you don’t get to ruin other people’s lives to fix your own, no matter what.”

“Yeah well, not everyone’s got your moral compass and unwavering strength.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He turned to frown at his best friend.

Bucky’s jaw worked soundlessly for a bit before he sighed and said, “you wanna know why I like him so much?”

“You like him?”

“I don’t feel like such a piece of shit when I’m around Wade, probably because he’s a worse piece of shit.”

“Bucky, don’t talk about a dead man like that.”

“There are no expectations, Steve. You have no idea how fucking liberating it is to just be a piece of shit with no expectations.”

“Hold on, are you still feeling bad about— the airport thing happened years ago. You’ve been pardoned and the soulless social media vultures have finally lost interest. What is there to—” Steve sputtered, “is it me that’s making you feel bad?”

“Maybe?” Bucky hung his head, “I ruined your situationship with Stark and your weird celebrity superhero friends had to take sides. It doesn’t help that the tabloids keep reporting on you and Stark’s quote unquote ‘fallout of the century’ and the public thinks I stole you from your rich sugar daddy, and all for what, Steve?”

“For me,” Steve said, turning fully to face him, “because I can’t function without you, Bucky. Tony was always just a work friend. Yes, he’s having relationship issues with Pepper but that’s because of his inherent character flaws, not me. You’re family, and you’re also a fucking dumbass if you think that you’re not worth burning every bridge and more. I’d do anything to—”

“You said a bad word, Johnny,” The decapitated head in Bucky’s lap rasped. Steve let out a scream that probably only a select subspecies of dogs could hear and chucked the two cups of cucumber water at him like it was holy water.

“Aww man, now it just looks like I peed myself,” Bucky complained, lifting Wade’s head up and examining his dripping crotch.

“Holy shit, he’s alive,” Steve whispered in awe, clutching the crushed paper cups to his chest.

Bucky shrugged. “I told you.”

“He has risen, just as my loyal disciple promised! And by he, I mean me, I’m Marvel fucking Jesus, son,” The head said, coughing up some blood clots, “now I just need a few hours to 3D print the rest of my body and we can go again.”

“No need, Mr. Wilson,” A smug voice shouted from the end of the hallway as the elevator doors parted to reveal a sea of people in red and black costumes wedged like sardines in the cramped space. Paradox extracted himself with some aggressive elbowing and kicking. He’d changed out of the cafeteria hairnet and mustard-colored uniform vest into a vintage suit. Sweeping his hair out of his sweaty face, Paradox adjusted his crooked tie, “O captain, my captain, I present to you — the Deadpool Corp. They are the exact unkillable corrupt cockroaches you want for the job.”

“Look, we match,” The floating head yelled gleefully over the rest of the bizarre group.

“Hey bestie,” The masked woman in front waved her gloved fingers at Wade, “long time no see. You’re looking a little worse for wear there, baby boy. Trouble in paradise? You must truly be at rock bottom to come begging for our help.”

The head in Bucky’s arms opened its mouth, “motherfuc–”

“OMG, is that Captain America? I fuckin’ love Steve Rogers!” One of the guys wearing a sparkly Hello Kitty fanny pack overflowing with ammunition squealed from the back. He put a hand over his masked mouth and let out a fake high-pitched gasp, “oops, sorry for being a naughty boy and saying a bad word. Punish me, daddy.”

“I’m actually not, the name’s Johnny.” Steve lied without missing a beat, “thanks for offering to help. We really do need it.”

“Right then,” Mr. Paradox clapped his hands to grab their attention, “we need one team to capture this diabolical variant Jean Grey and another to track down the Wolverines.”

“Are they not in the same place?” Steve frowned, “I thought the whole point of kidnapping him was—”

“She’s been throwing away her failed brainwashing experiments in Earth-2260. The X-Men never happened there. That Charles Xavier unfortunately didn’t make it past the age of ten, which is not relevant to our task at hand, but your precious peanut should be there, Mr. Wilson.”

“You acknowledged my wife’s legal name,” Wade gasped.

Paradox’s face spasmed. “Yes, and you’ll be pleased to know that I made the unwise decision to take a peek at your activities since our last meeting and threw up twice on my way here.”

“Hehe, nice. Get me a recording for later.”

“Buck, you go with Wade and track down Logan,” Steve said, “I can take the rest of the group back to the X Mansion.”

“That seems…dangerous.” Bucky frowned.

“Don’t you worry, metal-armed hobo man, we’ll protect hot American daddy over here,” one of the Deadpools said, wrapping an arm around Steve’s waist and drawing him close, “won’t let a single hair on this gorgeous blond head get hurt, will we?”

A smattering of very enthusiastic “no, sir”s, “aye, aye Captain!”, and wolf whistles swept through the crowd.

“Fine, who wants to come with us?”

Dead silence greeted Bucky’s question.

“Damn,” Wade muttered from the crook of his elbow, “you horny fuckers fucking suck ass.”

“You can take a few Minutemen,” Paradox waved a dismissive hand before turning back to Steve and inhaling deeply through his nose, “my darling captain, I have been dying to say this since you stepped foot inside the TVA — someone get this man a goddamn shield!”

Bucky raised a hand.

“Yes, and guns for you, Handsome. I haven’t forgotten.”

“Thanks, but I was gonna ask for something to hold this,” He gestured to the severed head nestled against his chest. “Do you have a backpack or…?”

Paradox rubbed his chin critically, “perhaps a baby carrier? A-19, go see if you can dig one out of the lost and found.”

“You really didn’t sleep a wink, huh?”

Logan glanced up from the cabin steps and shook his head, “Jimmy snores like a church organ.”

James smiled, “that’s why he's on the pullout in the living room.”

“How’s the old timer doing?” He asked, getting up and following the other man to the back of the lot. There was a small well-tended garden and a neat hen house. James handed him a straw basket and popped the latch to let the chickens roam free. They came pouring out to explore and peck at the ground in search of morning grub.

“He’s fine, it’s a chronic thing,” He commented, passing fresh eggs Logan’s way, “hell, he wants to die so bad it’s probably causing the healing factor to malfunction.” James caught him staring at the colorful plant tags sticking out of the soil nearby and chuckled, “my Kayla painted those. She also did all the horse ones in the house.”

“She's very talented,” Logan said stiffly, “do you miss her?”

“Constantly, but like I said, I don’t wish the Wolverine life on anyone,” James sat back on his heels and brushed a few pieces of hay off of his jeans, “toward the end, it was hard for her to see her body slowly fail and me looking the same damn way I looked when I first met her fifty-three years ago. We never had kids, she didn’t want ‘em, but we also never went to bed angry once in over half a century of being together. She took a part of me with her when she died. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He tossed some chicken feed at the birds and asked, “you ever been in love, Logan?”

“Not like that,” He said past the ache in his chest, “I don’t think…”

“Did you have a peaceful life, at least?” James asked, placing two fresh tomatoes in Logan’s basket.

“No,” He frowned, “but I think we had a dog. And Laura.”

“We?”

“Me and this old blind lady…”

“Huh,” James lifted both eyebrows at him, “well, look on the bright side, at least your dog’s not gonna starve with you gone.”

“Yeah,” He shrugged.

“I’m going get started on breakfast,” James took the basket from him, “you prefer eggs or pancakes?”

His stomach jumped at the thought of pancakes for some reason. Logan rubbed a hand over his face, “eggs are fine. Thanks.”

“Bring some water from the well on your way in, won’t you?”

He nodded. “I’ll get that.”

James walked back around to the front and Logan heard the door creak open and shut. He found the well a few hundred feet down the gently sloping hill, another one of Kayla’s hand painted signs designating it as the “watering hole.” He smiled at the heart-shaped block of wood that was obviously James’s work, judging from all the little animal wood carvings scattered about in the cabin. It reminded him of something, and Logan felt around the zipped lining of his suit until he caught the flat edge of his wallet. He pulled out the glittery sticker with the horrible spelling errors on the back and examined it under the soft morning sunlight.

“Wade,” Logan murmured under his breath, shaping out the syllables on his tongue. It felt familiar, perhaps in the same way Kayla’s name was for James.

As carefully as he could with his sausage fingers, Logan peeled the backing paper off and stuck the bright pink Hello Kitty sticker onto his X-Men uniform, right over his heart. Then, he filled two of the empty plastic cans tied to a nearby tree with water from the well and carried them inside.

“He gave Steve half a dozen shields to choose from and all I get is a used Walmart bag,” Bucky complained as they stepped through the Timedoor onto soft green grass.

“It smells like the inside of a sweaty jock strap in here,” Wade said miserably from where he swung off of Bucky’s forearm. The plastic bag crinkled noisily in the silent forest.

“Yeah well, I need both hands for this.” He gestured to the Minutemen and the ten TVA officers spread out into the trees. Bucky adjusted his grip around his shiny new gun and set off after them. “How long before you get your legs back?”

“Depends. It’s usually faster if my spine’s intact,” Came the muffled response. “Do you…do you think she fucked with Logan’s head a little too hard and that’s why he’s here?”

“I don’t know.”

“That psycho mind witch probably made him forget who I am.”

The foliage was getting denser up ahead. Bucky moved the slipping Walmart bag further up his arm and tightened his fingers around his weapon. “How can he? You’re like the most annoying thing ever.”

“That’s ok, I’ll make him remember,” Wade’s tone was saturated with false cheer, “and if not,” the bag rustled with a shaky laugh, “I’ll just have to take the scenic route and get my angry sweetpea to fall for me again. Shouldn’t be too hard. I’m a likable guy once you get past this car wreck of a face. I got a passable dick, too.”

Bucky sighed and set the gun down against a nearby tree. He pulled the plastic bag open and peered down at the crestfallen head inside.

“Wade, you don’t forget the people you love,” He said, “I speak from experience. They’re etched in your soul. No amount of brainwashing will get rid of that.”

“You think he loves me?” Deadpool asked hopefully.

He considered the question. Love was a strong word. Bucky hadn’t interacted with Logan long enough to come to a decisive conclusion.

“He doesn’t hate you.”

“Thanks, Bucky,” Wade said after a pause.

“You’re welcome,” He grunted, reaching into the bag to inspect the stump of Wade’s neck. There looked to be a few new nubs of flesh starting to push out and the bleeding had fully stopped. He touched one of the soft protrusions. “Looks like your toes are growing back.”

“That’s actually the tip of my penis you just squeezed, friend,” Wade said.

“What the fuck, man?!” Bucky yanked his hand back with a disgusted yelp.

“I’m kidding,” The talking head cackled, “you’re right, it’s me toes.”

Gunfire up ahead put an abrupt end to their unhinged conversation. Panicked screams and shouts followed. Bucky tied the bag shut, grabbed his gun, and ran toward the sounds of the skirmish.