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I.
It wasn't uncommon for Logan to be a week late on his estimates where finishing a 'job' was concerned: Logan was thorough, and mercenary work usually never proceeded quite as planned.
It was, however, rather uncommon for Logan to be a month late without at least dropping Charles a phonecall or a message through SHIELD lines. Charles had tried to make polite enquiries through SHIELD, but Coulson was unavailable, having apparently been assigned to some new initiative, and Fury was harassed and irritable when Charles had finally managed to get through to him. (No, he didn't know where Logan was, and no, it wasn't a SHIELD matter, and how did Charles get his number, anyway?) After apologizing absently, Charles had hung up and sat in his study for a while, fingering the dog tags.
Charles was old enough now to stifle anxiety before it welled to the fore. It was very much unlike Logan to abruptly disappear without a word. Ergo, he had to be in trouble. As much as Logan had once bluntly told Charles that he didn't need Charles interfering in his 'merc work', surely enquiring after his current whereabouts wouldn't be terribly disruptive. Ergo, it wasn't as though this was forbidden. Calmer now, and satisfied, Charles called Raven, only to reach her Sub, Hank, who apologized profusely for being unsure as to where Raven was at the immediate moment, and then panicked when Charles mentioned that it was about Logan and had to be talked down.
After finally managing to get Hank to settle down and look for Raven without raising all hell about it, Charles called Tony, reached his voicemail, and was rerouted to his ever-efficient secretary. Tony, it seemed, was nowhere to be found and had last dropped out of radio contact in the Iron Man suit, plus one Captain America, somewhere around Bhutan, and what was the problem, anyway?
Twenty minutes later, Charles was rather taken aback when he opened the door to reveal Miss Pepper Potts, trim and neat in a charcoal gray suit and a pink blouse, with red-heeled neat patent black shoes. Behind her was another lady, lustrous auburn hair dusting her shoulders, dressed in a white blouse and black cigarette pants and sensible, low-heeled black boots. Both Tony's secretary and the newcomer wore the Stark equalization bracelets, and Pepper smiled at him as she swept into the room, radiating efficiency.
"Professor, this is Natasha Romanov."
"Good morning, Professor." Natasha inclined her head. A Dom, Charles noted absently, and glanced at Pepper, noting the distance between them, the slope of their shoulders, the cadence of their breathing. A pair, then.
"Good morning," Charles blinked. "Could I offer the both of you a cup of tea?"
"That won't be necessary," Pepper demurred, though her lips twitched upwards slightly. "No, we haven't found Tony, though I've left several messages on his phone and on Captain Rogers', so I presume that we will be hearing from them sometime in this century. In the meantime, Logan was last seen in Williams Lake, Canada, where he checked into a motel with his credit card. He stayed three days before checking out. Presumably, we should start our enquiries there."
"I don't wish to trouble you-"
"Perish the thought, Professor," Pepper interrupted briskly. "You've done a lot for Tony. I want to help you. Please pack an overnight bag. A few days' worth of clothes should be enough. We'll wait for you at the sidewalk, unless you need a hand. We'll be flying to Williams Lake in one of the company jets."
"Oh," Charles managed, rather taken aback, then propriety prompted him to add, "Ah, thank you."
"Take your time," Pepper reached over, her movements slow and careful, and squeezed his hand, gently. "Don't worry."
Natasha eyed him silently as Pepper turned on one fashionable heel to head back to the creaky old lifts that serviced the apartment block, then she inclined her head and followed Tony's inhumanly efficient secretary. Fifteen minutes later, hastily packed, Charles was seated with Pepper in the back of one of Tony's speed monsters while Natasha navigated traffic with the grim confidence of an assassin. Pepper smiled blandly at Charles as he held on to the handrest at the door, alarmed, as they narrowly missed scraping against a heavily loaded truck.
"Aren't we going a little too fast?"
"We're in a hurry, aren't we?" Pepper glanced at her watch, unfazed even as the car swerved sharply in a scream of rubber. "The plane should be ready in five minutes. Now if you'll excuse me, Professor, I have to rearrange some meetings."
Charles felt better once they were up in the air, in one of Tony's sleek, self-designed jets, and Pepper switched off her mobile, having fielded a long stream of business calls all the way until takeoff.
"How did you trace Logan?" Charles asked. Natasha, of all people, was also flying the plane, and Charles' original conclusion that she was some sort of Stark Industries employee was beginning to fray. On the other hand, there was far less traffic up in the air... hopefully...
"I've told you. He used a credit card. We tracked him." Pepper's tone was carefully patient. "He stayed at the Super 8 Motel."
"It's quite unlikely that he would have left anything behind." Logan tended to travel light. "Or told anyone where he was headed next."
"Maybe. I have a list of all the purchases he made in Williams Lake, with the credit card. There aren't many, but he might have talked to any of them. He bought a map from the local bookstore, some fuel from the depot, and rented a bike."
"We'll have to find out which map it was that he had purchased, and he might have spoken to the rental shop." Charles decided, thinking things over. "Also, as much as I hope that there wouldn't be any unpleasantness, perhaps in a contingency-"
"Natasha's armed at all times," Pepper stated confidently. "She's on leave. From SHIELD," Pepper elaborated, when Charles raised his eyebrows.
That explained things, certainly. Charles relaxed. "The Director wasn't very keen on assisting me."
"Fury has a lot of plates to juggle. One mercenary's life doesn't really figure on his scale," Pepper scowled briefly. "And we don't need them, anyway. He bargains hard for favors. You're taking this really well, Professor. I'm relieved."
"Having hysterics would be counter productive," Charles noted wryly, "And I'm not as spry as I used to be. I'm sure that this can all be resolved in a reasonable manner."
Pepper looked briefly frozen, even as there was a hasty cough from the cockpit, then she agreed, primly. "I hope so, Professor."
II.
The concierge at the Super 8 Motel was a plump man with watery gray eyes, and he did in fact recall Logan, but had instinctively labelled him a 'bad sort' and hadn't wanted to have anything to do with him, business aside. They were allowed up into Logan's room, but it was unoccupied and clearly had been cleaned up at least once, empty of possessions. The bookshop owner sold them a copy of the same map, which was just a basic map to the general mountainous region of British Columbia, and the rental vehicle shop proved to be the most helpful: it seemed that the rental bike had been found a couple of weeks ago, propped up some distance off the road to Dog Creek, by one of the rental shop owner's friends.
It took a lot of flattery and some minor bribery for the shop owner to agree to scrounge up his friend, being a thoroughly disreputable looking mechanic with an unrepentantly florid face, sunken in a coat made of some sort of matted brown fur that stank of rotting carpets. Instead of being civilised, the mechanic persisted in making continuously inappropriate comments involving Pepper and Natasha, but even as Charles firmly protested the matter Pepper shook her head, and Natasha, expressionless, pulled the mechanic into a back room.
Five minutes later, the mechanic reappeared, wild-eyed and sweating, and drove them immediately to the spot where he had found the offloaded bike in silence. It seemed that he often came up to the area to hunt, or so he mumbled, and left them hurriedly, even as Charles watched in concern as Natasha opened her fashionable Boston bag and produced a rather large pair of revolvers.
"Oh dear. There isn't going to be trouble, is there?"
"Not for us," Natasha promised grimly, in accented English.
"We're not really dressed to go traipsing through the woods," Charles added, as the thought occurred belatedly to him. As much as they were all bundled up, and Pepper was wearing a more sensible pair of shoes, they were going to be the most... fashionable rescue party in history, to say the least, in Saville Row coats and scarves. "And where are we going to start?"
Pepper had already whipped out her mobile phone. "I've received confirmation that Stark Industries' satellites have been picking up encrypted radio chatter in the vicinity, centered on a part of the mountain range that should have been uninhabited. We'll start there."
"In the mountain range?" Charles repeated, eyebrows raised. "Far away?"
"It'll be a fair walk," Pepper admittedly, clearly unfazed by the prospect of hiking through a freezing cold Canadian wilderness, then she took in his expression and patted him on the arm. "Would you prefer to return to the town?"
"No, of course not," Charles shook his head, "But this could be rather dangerous for you, Miss Potts. There may be... er... wild animals."
Natasha muttered something in Russian to herself, even as Pepper replied dryly, "Wild animals will be a nice change from wrangling shareholders and the Stark Industries' board of directors, Professor. At least they won't sue if we bite them back."
"Please call me Charles," Charles retreated behind his sole futile attempt at informality over all the years that he had known the efficient Miss Potts.
"Very well, Professor."
Charles gave in, as they followed Natasha deeper into the woods; Natasha occasionally consulting a mobile phone of her own. "What are we expecting to find?"
"The radio chatter is low level, and intermittent. The facility was used before, in the 1940s," Pepper recited promptly, "But it's since been discontinued, as far as SHIELD is aware. Given that the chatter is repetitive, it's quite possible that it's just an-"
"Automatic distress signal?"
"Indeed, Professor." Pepper nodded. "So it's quite likely that Logan has already finished whatever he came to do."
That was logical. Logan was usually the cause of other people's distress signals, anyway. "If he's still in the area, he might have just accidentally... fallen into a crevasse, perhaps." Charles felt cheered by the thought, if uncomfortably. Logan had once told him that he could go without food and water for longer than others could, because of his healing ability, but for weeks? Snowfall would serve as water, but for food-
"Exactly." Pepper seemed to be addressing the whole problem of Logan's disappearance and a lengthy mountain trek with the same cheerfully militant discipline with which she organised Tony's life.
"Logically, he intended to come back for the motorcycle," Charles reasoned out aloud. "That means he'll probably be anywhere between here and the source of the radio chatter."
III.
The radio chatter was coming from an underground facility, apparently, and they eyed the entrance of it - a gaping, dark maw that was partially snowed in, set at the base of a cliff, with different degrees of unease. They hadn't encountered any crevasses or suchlike on the way up, and Charles was tired. He tried to keep himself fit, but the trek was arduous and it was growing dark and colder.
"I suppose we were rather hasty," Charles admitted. They should have brought some camping equipment, perhaps, though he had no idea how to set up a tent, but there was probably a manual of some sort, and it couldn't be difficult. "Or perhaps that facility might be habitable." Though if Logan had come and gone, it was entirely possible that it was now a morgue.
Logan's mercenary work had been one of the few futile aspects of Logan that Charles had been unable to change. Over time, reluctantly, he had come to accept it, somewhat, but he wasn't entirely sure that he was going to be able to face the evidence of it when outlined under his nose in blood and gore.
"Don't worry, Professor. Tony will be here within the next hour," Pepper assured him briskly. "He's homing in on my signal."
"Ah." Charles relaxed. "Then perhaps we should take a look around?"
Natasha eyed the door, then Charles and Pepper, and shook her head. "What about the Captain?"
"Presumably he will be accompanying Tony."
"Stark takes the two of you back to town, and he and I will investigate the facility." Natasha decided firmly. "I think you have had enough of an 'indulgence', no?"
Pepper straightened up, but Charles hastened to agree. "Miss Potts, I assure you that you have done far more than you should have for me as it is. Miss Romanov, I must insist that I continue to search-"
"Shh." Natasha was suddenly crouching, her eyes narrowed, head cocked as though listening to something.
Charles strained his ears, for a long, tense moment, then he whispered, "What is it?"
"Shh!"
And then he heard it; engines. Snowmobiles, probably. Natasha hurried them back towards the tree line, but four men on snowmobiles abruptly burst out of the hill on the opposite side of the cliff, heading towards the open door of the facility. There were shouts as they were spotted, and then Pepper yelped as gunfire stitched ploughs into the snow, only a few feet away from them.
Natasha growled, "Run!" and returned fire. One of the men on the snowmobiles jerked backwards, like a marionette, but the others were already charging towards them.
"I'm sure that there's no need for bloodshed-"
Natasha swore at him in Russian, backing towards the trees as she fired again, and Pepper dragged him quickly forward, towards where the firs grew closer together.
"Run!" Pepper snapped at him.
"But Miss Romanov-"
"They'll be in far more trouble if they run up against her!"
Something about the urgency in Pepper's tone finally got through Charles' reluctance, and he forced himself to keep pace with her through the snow, puffing from exertion. Somewhere behind them, there was a scream, in a male voice, then after a moment, another one, that cut off abruptly.
They slowed down when Charles couldn't run anymore, leaning his palms on his knees and heaving shallow, harsh breaths. He really was rather too old for this. Pepper glared at the trees around them. Visibility was dropping fast, and... a shadow was moving to their left... Pepper yelped as Charles dived on her, knocking her to the ground. The crack of a gun barked loud in the night, wood chipping off the bark of the tree beside them.
Scrambling to his feet as he heard a gun being reloaded, Charles was debating whether or not to charge forward and try to surprise their assailant, when there was a wet, gargling sound, then the staccato retort of a gun discharging again, and again, then silence.
Pulling Pepper to her feet, Charles called out, uncertainly, "Miss Romanov?"
Pepper gripped his hand tightly as a long, low growl sounded instead, like from a very large wild animal. Four screams, four gunmen. And one very big animal. A bear, perhaps. Charles had grown up in Westchester, spent much of his youth in Oxford and the rest of his life in some location or other in or around New York, and as far as he was concerned, wildernesses and large wild animals tended to be something that happened, far away, to other people. It was beginning to occur to him that his aggressive disinterest in anything that didn't have to do with his work or the civil rights debacle was ill advised.
"If we lie down and pretend to be dead..." Charles wasn't entirely sure what to do against a bear, having never even seen one before in his life.
"No! They'll just eat you," Pepper hissed, looking around. "Can you climb, Professor?"
The growl sounded again, closer this time, even as Charles vaguely recalled a photograph in some Nature magazine that he had seen in passing in a news agent's store. "Can't bears climb trees?"
"Do you have any other ideas?"
"Um. Let me help you up." Wincing, Charles managed to give Pepper a leg up into the closest tree, and was just about to try and pull himself up onto it when Logan loped out into sight, sniffing at the air. The flannel shirt that he had left the house in was missing, and his jeans were very much the worse for wear. His breaths made white puffs in the air, and his bone claws were fully extended, fingers flexing. Blood dripped from his claws and coated his arms, steaming in the cold. Charles took a joyous step forward, then hesitated, as Logan regarded him with feral, narrowed eyes, sniffing again at the air, like a... very big... animal...
"Professor," Pepper whispered urgently from the tree. "You had better be climbing up. Right now."
"Logan?" Charles asked, anxiously. "Logan, it's me. It's Charles."
Logan made a questioning, rumbling sound, though he growled again in warning when Charles took another careful step forward, palms up. At Charles' next step, Logan jerked back, teeth bared, but he didn't move at the next, or the next, watching in wary silence at Charles' approach, as though he couldn't quite figure out whether to kill him or back off.
And then Logan flinched and jumped back as something bounced off his head. With a certain sense of dull horror, Charles watched the silver tube of Dior lipstick land gently on the snow.
"Professor, get up here!"
Logan dodged a sensible shoe thrown with remarkable accuracy, and snarled, darting forward and, to Charles' astonishment, scooped him up with one arm tucked under his thighs and knees, leaving him clutching awkwardly for balance over Logan's broad shoulders. "Logan-"
"Professor!"
"Don't come down here!" Charles instructed sharply, as Logan backed away into the trees. "Is Natasha close?"
There was a harsh breath, then, "Yes. But-"
"Get somewhere warm. Or wait for Tony. I'll be fine," Charles instructed, as firmly as he could, and then he lost sight of the tree as Logan set off on a ground-eating lope that jolted Charles uncomfortably against his shoulders and made him dizzy. They slowed down only when it was well after dark and Charles had lost all sense of direction and time, bruised and exhausted.
He blinked owlishly as he was gently lowered onto something soft. They were in some sort of cave, the outside world barely visible as a thin sliver of snow from his position, and he was sitting on a bedroll piled on top of several sets of jackets. Some of which, Charles noted, with a growing unhappiness, were suspiciously stained dark at around ribs height, with six clean puncture marks, or parallel slashes.
"Logan..." The rest of the gentle rebuke that he was assembling in his mind ebbed away, as Logan sniffed at him, frowning. He'd sheathed his claws, at least, but the wariness was still there, and with slow, careful movements Charles drew the set of dog tags from under his jacket and held it up for Logan's inspection. Logan stared at it, still as a statue for a few heartbeats, then he growled softly to himself and tugged at the collar of Charles' jacket.
"Logan, I really think that... oh, all right," Charles conceded, as Logan tugged again, this time impatiently, and unbuttoned his jacket, then he yelped as Logan pressed him down with a big palm set against his right shoulder, smearing blood over the cardigan that he wore beneath it, and nuzzled his neck, a low rumble echoing through his hunched frame. Charles hesitated, for a moment, then he tentatively stroked his hands over Logan's shoulders, surprised at the hot, almost feverish warmth. Logan had, after all, just been running shirtless through the forest for possibly weeks.
The rumble ebbed into a low, motorized sound that shouldn't have been possible from human anatomy and which would have been instantly familiar to any proud owner of a domestic cat. Charles tried to relax, even as Logan settled on top of him in an extremely heavy dead weight, and attempted to squirm discreetly into a position that didn't involve his ribs being slowly compressed into mush.
And then Logan hooked a finger under the chain, to inspect it more closely, and for the first time since Charles could remember after becoming Logan's, he felt an edge of anxiety as he felt himself slide automatically into the passive mental space characteristic of a Sub. Dimly, he was aware of Logan's purr changing note, and of Logan pulling his hand away to shift himself up onto his palms, staring into his face in apparent puzzlement. Then, with sudden deliberation, he unsheathed an inch of a claw from his right hand, and carefully ripped Charles' shirt and cardigan open to the navel, before proceeding to sniff at and nuzzle the strip of revealed skin.
Charles couldn't feel cold in this state, but he was still vaguely alarmed; Logan was not himself, that was clear enough, they needed to head back to civilisation and fix whatever had been done to him, it was likely going to be untenably cold, soon, and in Logan's current feral state, Charles wasn't sure if he was going to be gentle at all-
"Logan," he managed to whisper, even as his body relaxed further under a Dom's touch. Logan was studying his belt, picking at the silver buckle. "Logan, I'm red, Logan."
Logan froze, tilting his head, then he leaned up to look into Charles' eyes, even as Charles managed to repeat, "Red, Logan."
It was extremely unlikely that Logan would even register their colors code from their usual play, but in his current enforced mental passivity Charles couldn't quite come up with anything else and... and to his distant astonishment, Logan was wrapping his jacket back over him and piling on another one, then he settled over his lap in a boneless sprawl that promised to cut off circulation to Charles' thighs.
Charles closed his eyes slowly, relieved. Logan had once taught him how to come out of subspace safely by himself, and had made him practice, just for emergencies, he'd said, but it seemed now like too much effort. Warm, dazed and exhausted, Charles slipped into a deep sleep.
IV.
When Charles woke up again, he felt momentarily disoriented to find himself aboard Tony's jet, curled on the curved couch with Logan's arm around his waist, tucked against his Dom. Logan was fully dressed, in a brown bomber jacket that looked a half size too big for him, and was wearing a ten gallon hat that was clearly new, and he glanced down at him when Charles rubbed at his eyes.
"Mornin', Charlie."
"You're back," Charles breathed, relieved, and hugged Logan tightly. Logan tensed, for a fraction, before glancing away, and Charles frowned, about to ask Logan what was wrong, when at the opposite end of the couch, Tony pointedly cleared his throat.
Tony looked harassed, and he was still dressed in his Iron Man armor, his helmet resting under his palm. They were already up in the air, if the drone of the engines were any indication, and Captain Rogers' worried pink face peered at Charles from behind the last row of the sleek white seats. At the first row, to the right, Pepper seemed to be briskly attacking a computer keyboard. Natasha was nowhere to be seen, presumably in the cockpit as the pilot.
"Mind telling me what the hell you were doing out there?" Tony asked Logan, his tone tight with suppressed irritation.
"Yeah. I would." Logan shot back, and even as Tony sucked in a sharp breath, Captain Rogers interrupted with a quick, "Tony, Logan sometimes-"
"Don't interrupt," Tony interjected sharply, his tone brittle with tension, and for a moment, Rogers set his jaw, then he sighed and settled back into his chair. It was quite a stroke of serendipity, Charles decided wryly, that Tony had somehow managed to imprint on a Dom like the Captain, who seemed to regard his Sub as not so much a biological servant, or even a partner, but as something intensely precious to be indulged at almost every opportunity. He supposed that in effect, the Captain had after all waited more than half a century to meet the other half of his soul, and-
"You're drifting," Logan shifted Charles carefully against him. "The squirt's asking you why you came after me."
Charles blinked, still rather sleepy, and unconsciously snuggled closer, tucking an arm behind Logan's back. "You've been gone a month. I was worried."
"Didn't have'ta come. Shouldn't have. I've told you before."
"I think it was my prerogative," Charles disagreed, then he looked over at Tony's drawn expression and added, self-consciously, "Although I regret involving Miss Potts. I'm sorry, Tony."
"Don't be," 'Miss Potts' declared from the front of the plane.
"Oh yes?" Tony's head swiveled over, like a predator scenting prey. "And precisely why did you decide to take a nice long trek into the Canadian wilderness, Miss Potts?"
"Because the Professor needed a bodyguard, the Avengers are occupied at present, you were nowhere to be found-" Tony winced at that, "And Natasha kept insisting that she was too busy until I told her that I was going to accompany the Professor, with or without her."
Charles sighed. Potentially, there was going to be a feud in the future, involving Natasha, and possibly Fury, if he wasn't lucky. "Oh dear."
"You could have waited," Tony turned back to glare at him. "Granted, I was out of radio contact, but I'm compulsive, you know me. I'll have checked my messages within the day."
"I didn't know what you were doing," Charles replied calmly, if evasively. That was true. Logically, he could have waited. Tony would eventually have been contactable. Fury would eventually have been less busy. Statistically, since Logan had already been out of contact for so long, a short further delay might not have made a big difference. But then... "But then this isn't about what I should or shouldn't do, Tony. It's about being there once I think that I'm needed."
Tony scrunched up his face in puzzlement, even as Logan sucked in a soft, slow intake of breath. "I don't understand."
"You will," Logan told him, even as Rogers peeked at them again. "Maybe when you ain't so scared about trusting someone else to catch you when you're down."
Charles closed his eyes, expecting one of Tony's outbursts. Instead, Tony muttered, "Didn't you just tell Charles off for coming after you?"
"Didn't. I told him he shouldn't have come." Logan stroked a big hand down to his hip, "But since he chose to, I'll respect that. Maybe it ain't the smart choice," he added, when Tony muttered something undoubtedly rude, if incoherent, "But Charlie had the right to make it. He ain't my pet or my property. And he brought me back."
Charles glanced up, but Tony quickly dropped his gaze, fidgeting. "Yes, about that er, berserk state of yours-"
"None of your business, bub."
Tony bristled visibly, but then he sighed when Logan seemed content to stare him down. Eventually, Rogers got up from his chair and padded over to sit down next to Tony, and smiled placidly when Tony scowled at him.
"The Professor is safe, Tony. Isn't that enough?"
"Oh yes," Tony snarled, "And we had such a fun time tracking them up the mountainside in the dark and the cold, wondering at every moment whether Charles was still alive-"
Logan growled softly, but Charles quickly pressed his palm over the fingers that Logan had splayed over his hip, stroking the tips of his fingers over the knuckles of Logan's hand. "He wouldn't have hurt me, Tony," Charles stated mildly. "And if you had been there, I doubt that he would have hurt you, either. And he didn't attack Miss Romanov."
Tony glared at them both, then he seemed to deflate, with a deep sigh. "Okay. I've had a very long flight, I guess, which I'd had to do slow because I was carrying Steve, and... and..." Rogers idly pressed a palm over Tony's armored knee, and Tony subsided further, with a gruff, "I'm glad you're okay, Logan. I was worried too."
Logan's scowl faded, as Charles squeezed his palm. "Yeah. Thanks, kid. I 'preciate it."
"I'm in my forties, you do realize," Tony muttered resentfully, if half-heartedly.
"So?"
V.
Once home, Logan padded immediately out towards the balcony, arms folded on the safety rails, staring out at the street. Charles unpacked, tidied up absently, and then when Logan stayed silent through it all, finally sighed and found Logan's spare case of cigars and a lighter, following him outside. Logan accepted the cigar with a nod, slicing and lighting it, and smoked in acrid silence, even as Charles leaned beside him, content to wait. Logan wasn't much for words.
Finally, he muttered, "Could've killed you."
"No Logan, you wouldn't have."
"I try to keep it locked up," Logan continued evenly, breathing out a cloud of thick smoke, "But I get like that sometimes. 'Specially when I'm pushed past a pain threshold. Once I gutted three of the extraction team until Fury took me out. After that, he told me that SHIELD wasn't gonna run interference for me no more."
Charles glanced up at the late afternoon sky. "I have faith."
"That don't make you invulnerable, Charlie. Trust me on that."
"The feral part of you goes by scent memory, doesn't it?" Charles noted mildly. "I would have been safe. Miss Potts and Miss Romanov, possibly not."
Logan studied him slowly, for a long moment, then he looked away. "Maybe I wouldn't have killed you. But I could'a still hurt you."
"But you didn't."
"Charlie..."
"I have faith," Charles repeated, with a warm smile. "Sometimes that's all that the person you're believing in needs."
Logan snorted, his gaze growing distant for a moment, then he stubbed out his cigar on the rail, ignoring Charles' murmured protest, and ambled back indoors, tossing the half-smoked cigar and the lighter onto the box at the side table and shrugging off his jacket, dropping it on the bed. He had palmed off his hat when Charles slipped a palm up his back, over the thick, hard planes of muscle, and when Logan turned to look at him Charles tugged him over for a kiss, a slow one, with the unhurried intimacy born of decades of practice.
"I'm green now," Charles suggested, a little breathless, when Logan dropped the hat on the jacket and pulled him into his arms.
"If you get tired, let me know." Logan lowered him onto the bed, gently, and helped him pull off his jacket. He was still wearing the ripped shirt and cardigan underneath, and Logan frowned for a moment, tracing the jagged edges until Charles gripped his wrist.
"Give me an inch," he tapped on Logan's knuckle, and as the tip of a claw slipped out, he pulled Logan's hand down, catching the curved bone spur on the fabric and ripping, finishing the job. It was a little awkward, especially when he had to untuck the rest of his shirt with his free hand, but Logan's gaze had grown hot and intense, especially when Charles brought the claw up to his mouth to draw the tip carefully and teasingly between his lips.
When he scraped his teeth against it, Logan groaned and sheathed his claw, then replaced it with his mouth, the kiss demanding now, pressing Charles into the sheets with his big palms splayed against his shoulders. When they broke for air, Logan nuzzled his cheek, then kissed him again, until Charles had his fingers curled urgently in Logan's awful flannel shirt and his legs curled around his waist, then he blinked owlishly and relaxed as Logan whispered harshly into his ear, "You gonna let me take care of you now, Charlie?"
Subspace was a comfortable, familiar warmth. Charles parted his lips slowly as Logan licked into his mouth, a big palm stroking his cheek. Pleasure seemed all the more complete that now it was a separate creature, as Logan took his time mouthing greedy kisses down his bared chest, down to his belly, and when Logan asked him what his color was, he'd had to repeat himself.
"Green," Charles murmured, his eyes fixed on the ceiling as he distantly felt his shoes being removed and tossed cavalierly off the bed, judging from the faint thumps that they made. He frowned a little at that in disapproval, but then Logan soon had his belt off, then his pants and boxers, and was running big, warm hands appreciatively up and down his inner thighs, pushing them apart.
When Logan first put his mouth on him, Charles let out a soft, wrecked little moan that made thick fingers tighten briefly over his hips. "Green," he whispered again, when Logan hesitated, then he breathed a whispery little sigh of pleasure as he felt himself sink into a tight, wet heat, all the way in until he could feel himself pressing against the back of Logan's throat. His fingers twitched, and then he was giving voice uncontrollably to a cadence of soft, helpless whines as Logan brought slick fingers against his entrance. He hadn't heard or felt Logan get the lubricant, and puzzled over this for a brief moment until the thick digits pressed inside him, with a calculated deliberation that made him groan. If he hadn't been under, Charles would probably have spent himself immediately.
He could hear the grunts and the wet noises that Logan was making, amplifying the slowly coiling tension within him that wound tighter with each expert crook of Logan's big fingers, until Charles was panting, open-mouthed, his throat going raw with his cries, and then he murmured a protest as Logan abruptly pulled away. A tongue thrust into his mouth, its aftertaste bitter, then Logan growled in a low rasp against his ear. "Come."
Charles blinked rapidly when his body finally stopped trembling, vaguely aware of Logan sucking marks onto his neck and onto his shoulders, and then through the haze of satiation he heard Logan command, "Count up to thirty, then wake up for me. Nice and slow."
Logan was studying his handiwork with a satisfied smirk by the time Charles pushed himself up onto his elbows, then he shrugged and caught Charles' wrist when Charles reached for his belt. "Later."
Charles managed to sit up, pulling Logan up to slant their mouths together, then he murmured, "Rule two, Logan."
"Someday I'm gonna have'ta have a long talk to you about that one," Logan grumbled, but the smirk stayed in place as he let go of Charles' wrist, watching with open hunger as Charles undid his belt and unzipped his jeans, tugging them carefully down to free Logan's flushed arousal, the front of his boxers already wet with pre-come. "Sure you ain't tired?"
"I'm sure, Logan." Charles looked around until he spotted the lubricant on the side table, then Logan was squirming and rumbling deep in his throat as Charles smeared it on his waiting cock. "But we'll have to take this a little slower than usual, I suppose."
"You're gonna kill me," Logan groaned, as Charles guided himself down, forcing himself to relax against the hot, tight slide, and big hands clenched tight over his hips, slowing him further, until finally he was sheathed all the way, breathlessly luxuriating in the sensation of being stretched to his limit, of being so full.
Even letting his body weight do most of the work, it was slow going; Charles wasn't going to get hard anytime soon, he wasn't getting any younger and he had spent several hours yesterday wandering through the wilderness, and then sleeping on some sort of nest of jackets; his body ached, not entirely pleasantly, but he needed this, now. Wanted it, too. They punctuated their mingled breaths with sloppy kisses until his legs gave out, then Logan turned them to push him up against the headboard, rocking urgently against him until he stilled abruptly, burying the low snarl welling in his throat against Charles' neck.
Sometime later, when his breathing began to slow, Logan began to pick himself up, and Charles tugged lightly on his arm. "I didn't get turned into a pincushion in the cave."
Logan scowled, shrugging him off. "I wasn't thinking in the cave, Charlie. And we've been having this talk for thirty years now."
"I know," Charles smiled, languidly. "And we'll be having it for another thirty years more, I presume."
Logan watched him soberly, then he reached over to rub his thumb over the dog tags pressed over Charles' ribs. "Yeah." Logan didn't smile; he didn't need to. After a heartbeat, Charles brought up a hand to wreathe their fingers together, the metal warming further under their palms.