Archive of Our Own

There wasn’t much Logan was sure of anymore, but even now, through the lingering, bone-deep exhaustion and bottles of whiskey wearing away what was left of him, he knew something wasn’t right.

Logan’s eyes flicked to his left down the piss-drenched stretch between two buildings and lifted his cigar. He blew a smoke ring and sat there a few minutes longer, watching the occasional passers-by give him no more than a glance. No one had spat in his direction in a while, but that might’ve had to do with the hood he had pulled over his head. Even around here, he tended to get recognized.

He closed his eyes and scratched his chest as the crawling sensation spread down his neck and back. He whipped around, but before he could even hope to get eyes on anything, the feeling faded.

Fuck, he was tired. This had been going on too long, and he hadn’t found a way to deal with the fucking thing yet. If it even was a thing.

Scott would’ve laughed at him before taking him seriously. Jean and the others might’ve taken him seriously, if he’d had any sort of proof.

It didn’t matter anyway. Logan took a swig of the bottle in hand to wash down that memory. No reason to go where there was no point treading.

At first, he’d thought it was Creed. Reason being, Victor Creed—a mutant like him, with failures like his—was his long-term enemy and occasional companion throughout the years. Oh, and he liked stalking Logan. Made a game out of it, sometimes. He’d seek Logan out, and he wouldn’t let go.

A part of him had hoped it was Creed. Creed and him went so far back there was no way forward for them. Only thing was, usually Creed was quick to find Logan when things turned south.

As a reminder of what you really are, he used to say.

Logan took another swig. Nowadays, he knew exactly what he was.

He hadn’t seen Creed in ages, though, and as days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, he’d had to admit that Creed was the last person to hold out this long. If he wanted to get to Logan, he’d find the most inopportune moment for Logan and get it over with.

Logan took another slow drag and started walking unsteadily down the dingy streets.

It all boiled down to one fact: Logan was being followed. Better yet, stalked.

Logan couldn’t have explained it, if he’d been asked. He could point out a sensation at the back of his neck—prickling and distinct—and a feeling in his gut. Those were the only indicators he was being watched, and in his mind they were obvious enough. Still, when all was said and done, he hadn’t been able to find any evidence that it meant anything. It just kept happening.

And without anything concrete to go off of, Logan still wasn’t completely sure he wasn’t losing it. All he had was a feeling, and as much as he knew better than to ignore a gut feeling, what was he going to do about it?

Logan tried chugging the rest of his whiskey, but found himself sucking down nothing but air. He blinked slowly at the empty bottle.

Part of Logan kept trying to convince himself that maybe it was nothing. After all, it was probably nothing. It had to be nothing. Nobody that wanted to fuck with him would have waited this long, and Logan had been blackout drunk so many times that it made no sense if it was something.

Plus, maybe he wasn’t in the mood to deal with something.

With sobriety on the way, Logan abandoned the bottle in the nearby bin and paused at a pole, inches thick from years of flyers layered on top of each other. He plucked the first one to catch his eye and read up on a concert going down somewhere nearby. Maybe the new bartender down the block wouldn’t recognize him.

Suddenly, he froze.

There it fucking was again.

The prickle at the back of his neck started up, a feeling and a sensation both. Then his hair stood on end, which was new. Logan started walking, clutching the flyer like he hadn’t already forgotten what was on it.

It’s nothing. Ignore it.

He tried, but the feeling was growing, getting worse, getting visceral, so he tossed it aside so his hands were free. Instinct pulled and prodded and begged him to pay attention.

I don’t have time for this shit, he thought sourly.

Sniffing the air shamelessly revealed no scent, which wasn’t particularly helpful. Nothing to pin it on, no body to track down. God fucking damn it.

He was tired. So fucking tired.

Extending his senses, filtering out the scent of sewage and the rest of the city, Logan focused hard until he found it: a whiff of something. It wasn’t much, but it was a scent he couldn’t place, that didn’t belong.

Why did it smell familiar?

Logan rounded the street corner and came to a halt. Not even five feet away, a deer stood across from him on the sidewalk. A doe.

“The fuck…”

Logan blinked and took a casual step forward. The doe was faced away from him, and when it made as if to move, it jerked in a strange, ungainly way. Then it slowly turned, its black, beady eyes boring into Logan’s. Logan glanced around, blinking a few times, then he gave his cigar a glance, and his empty hand, like he’d find a bottle he’d forgotten about and it would explain what he was seeing.

The prickling grew stronger. His first thought was hallucination, but some drunkard worse off than him tripped into the doe, sending the both of them careening to the edge of the sidewalk. The man swore a few times, got up, and stumbled off.

The doe got back up; slowly, struggling to stand on its legs like a newborn, like it didn’t understand how its own limbs worked in tandem.

After it finally righted itself, it turned towards Logan again.

Then it moved. One limb stepped forward, awkward and gangly, and then the other followed. It slumped slightly—almost fell over—and dragged itself forward. Stumbled and fell, then got back up again.

The whole time, it kept its gaze locked onto Logan, and it was…fuck, it was creepy. The way it moved wasn’t right.

Nothing had been right for years now, and Logan’s fiery rage dissipated like smoke. Casting one last glance behind him, Logan turned around and walked in his original intended direction.

“It must’ve gotten shot with something,” he mumbled, for his own sanity, if nothing else. “Not my fucking problem.”

After he overheard Santiago down at the deli talk about a lost deer causing havoc around the block until animal control took it away, Logan was able fully rationalize it away as his overactive imagination post-sobriety.

Logan didn’t leave the house much. He was already living in a nightmare, so it was easier to stay holed up in his shithole of an apartment most days, attempting to drink himself into a stupor. It was harder than you’d expect, when most liquor stores didn’t want to sell to the Wolverine. And the ones that would—the ones that hated mutants, and celebrated what had happened—well, he wasn’t so far gone he was willing to hand over money to them.

He had so fucking much of it now. Charles had left him a sizable piece of his fortune at the event of his death, and he wasn’t the only one. Logan couldn’t make himself touch any of it, but he also hadn’t gotten rid of it, even though he was terrified of the day he’d cave.

“Christ,” Logan swore, settling back in his chair with a sigh. His apartment was tiny, with just a few rooms coated in dust and decorated in bottles. The blinds did a shit job of blocking out the light, and he was rubbing at his eyes with the hells of his hands when that feeling started up.

Anger pried away at his already frayed edges. For a second, he swore he heard something thumping on the other side of the wall, but he was on the twelfth floor.

“Probably a fucking bird,” he said, sighing again.

Unbidden, a common question Jean lobbed at Logan floated into his head, one he’d never had a good answer for.

What’s going on with you?

She wouldn’t have let this one go. She would have wanted to figure this out, get Hank involved. Have Charles get into his brain, find out where the connection was.

His throat closed. Logan took three steadying breaths and aimed for the nearest liquor store.

A few nights later, bone tired from wandering the city doing nothing—and on his fifth or so can of cheap beer—Logan collapsed into bed. Lying there, Logan didn’t actually expect to fall asleep. These days, he didn’t sleep much. Healing factor meant he only had a light buzz; that was how he explained the shifting shadow he thought he saw before closing his eyes.

That was why it disturbed him to come to with his eyes snapping open. Rapid blinking was all he could manage at first, the remains of his deep, black nothing sleep torturously slow to extract himself from for some reason. It was like pulling himself out of thick mud.

Groaning, Logan shook his head to clear it. A glance at his clock showed it was the middle of the morning. He willed sleep to evaporate the way it usually did, but it wasn’t until he sat up and heard it that the alarm bells—and the reason he’d woken up—started sounding.

Thump.

Logan jolted upright, the last vestiges of sleep completely gone. Two things occurred to him.

Thump.

One, he wasn’t alone anymore. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew.

Thump.

Two, whatever this thing was, it was outside.

Thump.

The sound came from just outside his window, like someone was banging a hammer beneath it and working their way up. Drawing closer.

Logan lived on the twelfth floor.

Carefully extending his claws, Logan crept out of bed, heart pounding. Every rise and fall of his chest was too loud, his breaths breaking apart the utter silence in a way that made him feel the furthest thing from safe.

When Logan’s foot slid across a creaky spot on the floor, between one breath and the next, the air went complete and totally silent.

That prickling, crawling sensation spread down the back of Logan’s neck like wildfire.

The ear-splitting shatter of glass breaking was the only warning he got when a writhing, gangly shape burst through the window. It only took Logan’s eyes a second to adjust its form as thin, hooved legs wriggled over the edge of the broken window, and blood cascaded from fresh wounds, splattering along the sill.

It was a deer struggling to get through the window. The same one, because Logan recognized the spot pattern on its side.

Logan couldn’t move. He didn’t know why. He was trying. Fuck, he was trying.

The deer burst past the window in a flurry of limbs, and then slowly dragged itself to its feet. It was shaking, and when it turned and dragged a foot towards him, its entire body jerked and slid to the ground. One hoof extended in Logan’s direction, and so did the next. Dark, gleaming eyes gazed at him while it dragged its body in his direction, one motion at a time.

Logan felt his body jerk forward a step without his consent. Breath hissed from between his teeth at the effort to not fucking do that, and now something else was telling him to look up. He didn’t know why, and when his head forcibly tilted itself back, all he could do was steel himself as something dark and twisted dropped down into a shape that resembled—

—Logan woke up gasping, in the dark, grappling for something—anything to hold onto, and when his hand landed on the nightstand’s cheap wood, it cracked under his grip. Claws scraping along the wood, he sat there, chest heaving. It took him way too long to find his phone to check the time.

Almost five. Daylight was beginning to creep onto the horizon. Logan looked around the room, the low light not an issue for his night vision.

The room was empty, the window intact.

It had been a dream, just a dream. Logan sat there longer, breathing.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he whispered, sliding a hand down his face.

Most of his nightmares ended the same way. Logan always had trouble differentiating reality in those first moments, because they were always so fucking real. Something about this one…something about it was different. He could still feel the fear and adrenaline coursing through him, and as the silence weighed on him, he realized why.

A familiar, miserably uncomfortable feeling tugged at Logan, now screaming at him. It pulled from inside him in new ways, begging him to look—to find it. Whatever it was.

But as he sat there unmoving, nothing happened. No one popped out of the shadowed corners to rip out his throat, and eventually that feeling faded.

Logan didn’t get any more sleep that night, but these days he rarely did.

Logan’s dreams seemed to get worse every night. It became almost impossible for him to tell the difference between dreams and reality at first, and he kept waking up sick to his stomach.

Still, finding some unknowable enemy wasn’t as easy as making it his mission to get wasted on a daily basis, and for the most part, he was succeeding.

Which was why the next time Logan managed to get blackout drunk, he opened his bleary eyes and figured he must be dreaming again. It was the only explanation for why he was staring at the yawning, looming building of the X-Mansion.

How the hell did I get here?

After a beat, he realized it didn’t matter. This was a dream; a nightmare. It had to be, because there was no way he’d willingly come here of his own volition.

At least I found ‘em, he thought, vision swimming briefly when he opened the door. Walking inside felt like stepping into another time. The police tape and mess had been cleaned away, leaving behind the crap Logan—and whoever else was supposed to own this place—hadn’t dealt with yet. Maybe it was him. He didn’t know.

Logan blinked and found himself in the courtyard. This was where he found the X-Men—what was left of them. That was shortly before he made those fucking bastards pay. Them, and a whole lot of other people, too.

He’d told himself it didn’t matter who got in his way, so long as he got what he needed, and he had. Sometimes, he still tried to tell himself that.

The rest of the night was a blur. Logan found the liquor and poured as much as he could stuff inside himself within the span of a few hours. Sometimes, he wasn’t sure what he was drinking was even booze. With luck, there’d be one of Hank’s old human-serums he used to make packed in one of these bottles, and he wouldn’t even be aware of it when he went down.

Curdling shame bubbled to the surface. No, that wasn’t fair to them.

“Should suffer,” he gurgled.

Now there was an idea. A belch blew out of him. He stood, swaying on his way to Hank’s lab.

Logan had no memory of entering or leaving Hank’s lab; he didn’t remember falling asleep, but the next thing he knew, he had shot up in bed claws out, DANGER! painted on the backs of his eyelids.

Darkness met his gaze as he whipped his head around the room. Nothing but the cool, quiet dark of…his old room in the mansion, he realized with a cut off curse. How the fuck had he ended up here? There was no fucking way he’d have gone here on his own, not a chance.

When he felt that now-familiar tug at his chest, he wished he had the excuse of being drunk, but by then he was stone cold sober, and so goddamn tired of putting up with this shit.

“Christ,” he swore. “Fuck. Fuck!” He leapt out of bed. “Hey!”

Rage he wasn’t prepared for burst out of him and into a volcanic geyser of fury.

“Who the fuck are you?” he yelled. When no response was forthcoming, he ripped his claws through the nearest wall, cutting through rich wood and paintings and dragging the lot of it down to the floor.

“Hey!”

Shelving splintered, books and old papers scattering down near his feet as he cut through the other side. His tantrum also knocked over the stupid holographic alarm clock on his desk that Hank had built—the one that Kurt programmed with all the songs he knew Logan liked—and it sputtered before the display crashed out and a distorted, failing melody began to play.

Standing there, panting, Logan had the thought that he shouldn’t be here. He didn’t have the right to take up the space they’d left behind. He was the only one—the only one that could’ve taken down those sentinels and survived doing it, and he’d fucked off and let them all die instead. What was he doing here?

“Fucking answer me!” he roared, his rumbling growl working its way up his throat until he was incandescent with his fury. “I’m sick of this shit! Just come at me and get it over with!”

Nothing. Nothing but a burning fire and a familiar ache in his chest. It sang like a siren.

“Fine. Then I’ll fucking find you. I swear to god I will this time. If you were the one who moved me, you’ve gotta be here.”

After sniffing the air, Logan opened his mouth to taste it. This thing either had no scent, or had found a way to mask it; all he could smell beneath the stale scents surrounding him was the slightest whiff of something else he didn’t recognize, which could’ve been any number of things. It didn’t point in any direction, either.

Hank would’ve had all kinds of theories. He’d have worked through the night, no matter how much Logan tried to downplay it.

Whenever his thoughts turned towards the X-Men, Logan couldn’t breathe, so he did the next best thing: he got moving. He started with the rooms next to his, keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. Then he extended his search further, trying to find any sign of this fucking thing, but the layers of dust in each room hadn’t gotten less dusty. No footprints or signs of recent wear, aside from his own.

You shouldn’t be here, he thought, standing in the hallway. Only a darker silence greeted his thoughts, and fatigue fell like a weight on his shoulders. Being here made his skin crawl for reasons other than his stalker.

“Should’ve gone home,” he muttered, running a hand across his face and finding it wet. “Should’ve…fuck. What the fuck am I doing?”

He closed his eyes again, groaning into his hands. He sat there for a long couple of minutes, an exhaustion that ran adamantium-deep washing over him.

What are you still doing here? Who cares what this thing is? Leave, you fucking idiot!

All this time, and all he had was a feeling. A hot, slimy feeling in his gut that wouldn’t go away. It made him want to scratch at his chest and tear his way through his own skin to find it.

It was when Logan stepped away from the door and towards the stairwell that he heard it.

If he didn’t have such sensitive hearing, he probably wouldn’t have noticed, but because it was so quiet, when something scraped ever so gently against the wooden floor in the room he’d just left, Logan stilled.

There you are.

Adrenaline shot through him. Moving silently, he walked over to his room again and hovered in the doorway, darkness coating his vision. Nothing moved, not even the dust that had settled from his earlier rampage.

He had a sudden, absurd thought: he hadn’t checked under the bed.

That pull he felt in his chest drew him in, and he let it. Logan walked up to the side of the bed. As he stood there, the cries of young students begging him to check under their bed for monsters briefly came to mind.

What are you, fucking twelve?

Logan lowered himself to the floor before he could overthink it. Night vision meant it only took him a second to adjust to what he was seeing.

The shadows under the bed played and leapt in front of his eyes; again, it occurred to Logan that there weren’t any low-level lights on in the mansion anymore—in fact, with the moon sitting behind clouds, it was basically pitch black. There shouldn’t have been any shadows.

The shadows parted, and two sickly yellow, unseeing dots widened. Eyes. They were fucking eyes. Then a mouth followed, splitting through the darkness, spreading into a huge grin.

“Oops.”

Logan’s heart rate skyrocketed as the mouth split wider. His insides burned. This thing—whatever it was—it was this. This was the fucking thing that had been following him. He just knew.

Its head tilted, and then wrenched in an unnatural direction. One appendage—an arm—reached towards Logan. He leapt back just as it reached the edge of the bed.

Before he could so much as blink, Logan’s back hit the wall, but not before he managed to shove both claws forward. In the dark, it was hard to tell how it reacted when he rammed his foot into its side and ripped his claws away to start tearing this thing apart.

At least, that was what he tried to do. It was what he thought he did, but his limbs hadn’t moved to cooperate. They twitched, rising sluggishly before stalling altogether. It was like someone had taken his skeleton and draped its weight over him tenfold.

“The fuck—” he hissed, trying desperately to move. What the fuck?

The thing—mutant?—kept staring at him, and Logan saw pale, mottled flesh peek from behind the shifting shadows covering his skin. That stuff all over him, it looked like a weird perversion of a hero suit, all the way down to the mask with black splotches around the eyes.

He started laughing, and the laughter got louder the longer they stood there.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Fuck! Hazel,” he said, followed by another high-pitched round of giggles that bounced off the walls. Logan’s skin crawled.

“Hazel. Of course they’re hazel,” the mutant continued, voice echoing in a way that almost made it hard to understand him. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Logan was nauseous with anger. Months of pent-up rage boiled out of him all at once.

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are,” Logan exploded in a vicious growl, “but you had better have a good fucking explanation for all the shit you’ve done, bub! Let me fucking go so I can fucking tear you to pieces. Right fucking now!”

He tried moving again, and only succeeded in ripping one claw free of the stranger’s body. Blood sluiced to the floor from the wounds, and it smelled human. Definitely a mutant, then.

Rather than reacting in any way Logan had come to expect from people he stabbed in the gut, the stranger exploded into even louder laughter. While Logan was still trying to get a hold of himself—and working himself into a serious fucking panic—the stranger stepped away from Logan, giggles still trailing from his masked mouth. The stuff all over him formed some kind of suit that covered the entirety of his body.

Logan wrenched his other arm free, fighting away the nausea. He needed to get out.

“You—" he started in a snarl.                 

“You called me bub!” the stranger interrupted in a burst. “Bub!”

He repeated it a few more times. Logan blinked.

“Sorry, it’s just—this is so exciting. Fuck, I mean, bub? That’s iconic!” The stranger rocked forward, and then back. “Can you say it again?”

“Let me fucking go or I swear when I get my hands on you I’ll—”  

“No, no, no, wait, waitwaitwait!” The stranger held up a hand. “Wait! I need to be mentally prepared.” Another nigh-on manic giggle. “I’m all flustered because you weren’t even supposed to see me. I mean, I wasn’t supposed to be here, but I saw you passed out in the lab, and I couldn’t let you go. Stupid fucking shoe on this stupid wood floor.”

It was exhaustion, that was why nothing was making sense. That had to be the explanation here.

“The lab,” Logan repeated numbly. “So it was you. All this fucking time, it’s really been you.”

“Right, and I wasn’t prepared for this moment,” the stranger continued emphatically. “So actually, don’t say bub. I don’t know if I can handle a second bub in the same minute. Not with those beautiful hazel orbs staring in my face.”

Jesus Christ. Of fucking course his stalker was a crazy one. Of fucking course it couldn’t be…

Late at night, Logan had sometimes wondered if the person following him was someone he knew, someone who hadn’t died. That it was all a trick, and that was why they felt so familiar.

He’d been wrong, and Logan only choice now was to bury it. Bury it and set it aside, because the fury boiling him alive had nowhere to go but out. Finally he broke free of whatever hold was on him and lunged forward, aiming for the stranger’s throat. The fact that he was no longer bleeding from the wound Logan had given him meant it was a safe bet that he had a healing factor that was comparable to Logan’s own.

And if he didn’t, Logan didn’t care.

“Careful there, hazel, you almost nicked me in my special place,” the stranger said, deftly dodging Logan’s attack.

Logan spun with a mean right hook. He was fast—faster than most people. Especially in short range. And he could take a hit; when Logan’s claws slid right through the mutant’s arm, he didn’t even flinch.

“Fuck me though, why didn’t I consider hazel?” he said, staring at said arm. “Every artist wants to land on blue. That, or they conveniently forget. My eyes have been all sorts of colors. Blue pops, sure, and brown’s got depth, but you’re him—movie him, hence, hazel.”

Seriously, what the fuck was this guy on?

“Listen here, bub, I’ve been putting up with your bullshit for too long. I have had it,” Logan said through gritted teeth. “Shut the fuck up and come closer so I can give you something else to talk about!”

Logan lunged again, only to freeze mid-step, straining with effort.

 “That’s right!” he gasped, snapping his fingers. “That’s why that’s working. How could I almost forget? So stupid. It’s been so long, I forgot I’d left that in you. I mean, it’s how I found you, duh. God, you’d think after all this time old ‘Pool would have a handle on his smokestacks.”

It hit Logan where he’d seen this guy before.

“I thought about trying to work in tater tot, but the nicknames weren’t making any sense,” the mutant said. “For a while nothing did, to be fair. Smokestack sounds like the name of a relatively popular B-lister. But I’m in A-lister, babey, or they don’t call me—”

He didn’t need to hear the rest.

This was Deadpool. Fucking Deadpool stood in the same room as Logan. He was a mercenary—a killer. Logan had seen the carnage he left behind more than a few times in the past.

There was a high-pitched ringing in his ears. Partially because the only thought running through his stupid head was something he didn’t have a right to anymore: protect the kids.

There weren’t any kids, because Logan had gotten them killed.

He needed to get out of there, and he needed Deadpool gone. Now. You didn’t see Deadpool unless he was there for a reason, and if Logan was that reason…well, he’d put an end to it.

Deadpool was still talking while the icy hot fury shooting through Logan’s veins kept growing colder. He was struggling hard now, straining every muscle to break free of whatever the fuck this guy was doing to him. The worst part was Deadpool kept babbling on, like he didn’t even fucking care.

“I mean, I knew where you were. I always knew where you were,” Deadpool said conversationally, his voice lowering. “I wasn’t just going to let you go after all that time.”

He stepped up to Logan, reminding Logan what other things they said about Deadpool.

“You’re Deadpool,” Logan spat.

“Got it in one! You know, all it took was one little piece of me to keep you in sight,” he said, his tone turning sweet.

They were by the window, with Deadpool facing away. Logan was so furious with his efforts he was sure he’d popped a few veins.

Maybe it was Logan’s anger that encompassed the hold that Deadpool had on Logan, or he just lost control; either way, Logan felt his body move, and he didn’t hesitate.

He was so fast, wary of losing his control again, that he overestimated his efforts and practically burrowed Deadpool into the wall, slamming him hard enough that a bunch of shit fell off the walls around them.

“Fuck, that fucking hurt,” Deadpool groaned. He giggled weakly. “Still…still worth it.”

“You’re Deadpool,” Logan hissed again, because he just couldn’t believe it. “What the hell are you playing at? Do you think this is funny?”

Deadpool’s eyes shifted—no, it was his mask. Something was up with that mask—something was up with his whole suit. It…moved.

“Look, this is all one big misunderstanding, and a longer story,” Deadpool said. “I tried the whole finding my own way, proving I wasn’t just what they made me, yadda yadda, but turns out being a hero is a lot harder than it looks! Whodda thunk. And then—”

Deadpool leaned into Logan’s grip, pressing into the claws Logan had near his throat.

“—then I saw you again, and you finally saw me and here we are. The Wolverine.” He clapped his hands together, and Logan retaliated by shoving one arm against the ground and pressing in with his claws.

“Don’t fucking move. Answer my goddamn question.”

“I would, but I’m just so nervous right now! Do I look nervous?” More laughter. Logan was already sick of that laugh. “I’m only staring claws-first at the Wolverine. Mister Wolvie himself, Wolverino. You know, some of these nicknames I’ve been using should not be repeated in polite company.”

Logan couldn’t stop staring at the solid yellow pits he had for eyes, and the way his suit moved. Maybe it was the dark, but Logan had pretty fucking good eyesight. Whatever it was that covered his body, it flickered around him like flames, never quite settling.

“Question. Answer.”

“They say you should never meet your heroes,” Deadpool said, “but let me tell you, Wolvie, I’ve seen the worst of the worst. So getting drunk while all your friends get slaughtered is low on the list of worst offenses. And trust me—"

Logan acted without thinking.

Watching Deadpool shriek from Logan’s claws puncturing his abdomen, he might’ve felt bad if Deadpool hadn’t been testing Logan’s patience since day one. Plus, the fact that he was standing in the one place where he’d promised himself he would never set foot in again only buoyed the emotion curdling inside him.

“Fuuuck!” Deadpool didn’t seem to care, though; if anything, his grin read wider under the mask. “Now that’s a love tap! Be honest: was it the doe? A buck just wasn’t in the cards for me. So hard to control those horns. They just want to bump on every little surface. Ugh, men, am I right?”

“Do you ever stop talking and start making sense?” Logan growled, rearing back and aiming for Deadpool’s head. It was then that Deadpool kicked him away, so his claws nicked the top of his mask, slicing through it. Black smoke shit poured out like lava, flickering in the air before the suit formed back over it.

Deadpool narrowly slipped past him on his next attack and vaulted over Logan’s bed, so Logan pivoted and lunged at him again. Jean used to joke that he needed to start flipping the mattress, but if he did that, that would mean he planned on staying.

He didn’t know how long he’d spent that first night, trying to mold himself to their shapes. He’d clung and prayed to feel their warmth lingering. It had to be a dream. 

“You must think this is all some fucking joke!” Logan roared, burning with newfound fury. “Chasing me around, following me every goddamn day!”

“Actually, like I said, I didn’t want you to find me—ee!”

Logan’s fist slammed into the wall beside Deadpool’s head. Books fell off the bookshelf Xavier had built for him.

Deadpool was quick on his feet, and even quick to dodge Logan’s attempts to take him out. Logan wore him down, though, bit by bit, the roiling ache in him refusing to abate no matter how much he sliced into Deadpool. Blood was splattered all over the place.

Then Deadpool tripped on the bedpost; there was a sharp edge Logan had made earlier by accident, and in his haste, Deadpool went down on his side.

Logan’s fist snapped forward, his claws sinking into Deadpool’s gut. Deadpool tried to jackknife upward in pain.

“Jesus Christ on a cracker!”

“Why are you here?” Logan repeated. “Not gonna ask again.”

“Fuck! How many times do I have to say you weren’t supposed to find me?”

“You have been following me. For months. I want to know why,” Logan snapped, burrowing his fist deeper. “Who put you up to this? Creed? Some dumb fuckers who paid you money? I won’t. Ask. Again.”

“Because—fucking fuck. You’re tickling my spleen. Any chance we can shift to my kidney? It’s been giving me trouble, and I’d like to regrow it.”

“Fine,” Logan growled. “If you won’t talk, I’ll shut you up for fucking good!”

He needed to get out of here. He needed to go back to Hank’s lab and find what he’d been looking for. Maybe it was what he’d wanted all along.

“Wait—”

With a roar, Logan drew back his fist—

“Wait!” Deadpool yelled.

—and then aimed it straight for Deadpool’s head.

“Waitwaitwait!” Deadpool shrieked, bringing both hands in front of him. “It’sbecauseyou’remyhero!”

Logan’s fist stopped hairsbreadth away from Deadpool’s skull, heart leaping into his throat.

“What the fuck did you just say?”

Hero.

“Fuck, don’t make me say again,” Deadpool said, practically quaking under him—a far cry from his behavior seconds ago. “A thirty-edging-on-forty something immortal calling another immortal his hero is cringe enough. Fuck! And now you made me go and say it again. So embarrassing!”

That was so laughably out of the range of expected outcomes that a bark of laughter left Logan before he could help it.

“This has got to be one massive nightmare,” Logan said. “I’m not fucking hearing any of this.”

Deadpool then surprised him when his demeanor abruptly changed. He stopped shaking and slammed his knee into Logan, loosening his grip. With impressive strength, Deadpool used Logan’s momentary surprise to push Logan backwards onto the bed.

Logan tried to move again, but couldn’t. This time, as Deadpool quickly drew up to Logan and gripped his chin with one gloved hand, panic set in. Whatever he was doing with his hold on Logan, it didn’t feel the way telekinesis felt.  

“Maybe this will all be easier if I take it back from you,” Deadpool said, and for once he sounded out of breath. “You are a fighter, and I’m not trying to fight. Not with you. Just give me one…”

Deadpool trailed off, the stuff around his face dissipating, revealing a grinning mouth, and then his lips slotted over Logan’s.

Logan was so dumbfounded by this that it took him a second to orient himself to what was happening. His lips curled back, but Deadpool wasn’t trying to make anything out of the kiss he’d planted on Logan; he inhaled, and Logan felt…something. It didn’t feel good. It was familiar, only worse. Awful.

His insides gave a revolting twist, and for a second, he thought he might puke, but then a rush of air escaped his throat, and he watched Deadpool pull back, a swirl of that same shadowy substance that covered his body disappearing into his mouth.

This just added to the long list of shit piling up on Logan’s platter.

“What the hell did you just do to me?” Logan panted. He felt weak. Weak.

“Sorry,” Deadpool blurted. “I should have asked. I’m not used to asking when it involves animals, and I’m actually so nervous right now, because you’re the only person I’ve used this on that I wanted to like, live—” A pause. A laugh escaped him. “I swear I don’t mouth-kiss animals. Or people I kill. It’s just easier to—you know what, let’s start over. I’ll crawl under the bed, and you glare menacingly at me again, take two."

While Deadpool’s mouth moved, Logan saw flashes of teeth peeking around the swirling shadows, and when Deadpool’s grin went wide again, the memories slammed into him all at once.

Back at one of the Oscorp labs, tearing apart one of the many experimental mutation facilities (i.e. mutant experiments out the wazoo), Logan met Deadpool.

Back then, Wade wasn’t Deadpool, and the X-Men were alive. They’d been with Logan at the time, though the team had split up.

He’d been running for what felt like hours; the guys in charge of the place had sent the grunts their way, chasing them down with guns and bullets. That didn’t do a whole lot to a group of mutants like them, but that didn’t mean the people they were rescuing fared the same.

He had just handed off a wounded teen to Storm when said bullets sailed past.

“Logan, Scott has—"

“Go!” Logan interrupted sharply. “Later! We’ll meet up outside! I’ll lead them away!”

Her mouth thinned with grim determination. She nodded once and took off in one direction, the sound of thunderclouds following her. Logan took the other.

He headed deeper into their facility, with rapid footsteps and gunshots following him the whole way. Logan knew he needed a way to lose them and not lead them back to the X-Men, which would be easier if he wasn’t full of bullet-holes. Killing them wasn’t current leadership’s style, as much as it pained him.

That was when he spotted it. He remembered that the signage above the room had a radioactive symbol on the door, with instructions in large print. There hadn’t been time to read them, and he reasoned that whatever was in there couldn’t be worse than out there; he’d walk it off.

Inside the room, it was dark save for the flashing warning lights beaming in from the small window on the door. Once Logan’s vision adjusted, he took in what appeared like a plain, nearly empty room. There was a chair. A bed. A few doors—one on the far wall that locked from the outside, if he had to guess.

He wandered further in, keenly aware that no one had followed behind.

The bed in the corner of the room was tiny, barely enough for someone of Logan’s size to sit comfortably. The door beside that led to a closet posing as a bathroom. Something was behind him.

He spun around just in time for pressure to hit the base of his throat. Something slammed him into the wall, and then the lights on the walls started flashing.

“What—”

His windpipe struggled to resist collapsing under the sudden weight. Blistering pain raced up his side. The mutant—the thing in front of him—wasn’t like anything Logan had ever seen. All dark, black smoke and little shape, winding in on itself.

In his surprise, Logan had barely resisted puncturing its lungs with his claws. Barely. He kept resisting, because for all its threat, there was something under there. This thing may have been a helluva mutant, but it was one all the same.

Logan met its eyes; ones that were staring at him, an unseeing and sickly yellow.

“Not tryin’ to hurt you,” Logan managed to gasp out. He wasn’t sure it could even hear him over the blaring alarms, but the lower half of its face slowly parted, revealing white, sharp teeth. Surprise—or glee—Logan couldn’t tell what expression it was making. It pressed against the wall, pinning him there. Its shape flickered with the lights, and when it drew close enough for its nose to brush Logan’s, he swore he could taste the damn thing.

The pressure abruptly receded. Logan stumbled away, clutching his throat, which had already healed. The shadowed thing was hard to look at, and as he squinted around the flashing red danger lights, its mouth split wider. Otherwise, it stayed still.

“They got you, too, huh?” Logan asked. He didn’t know why; the man(?) didn’t seem to hold Logan’s words in any particular regard. He wasn’t sure he could even understand English. All he got was a head tilt. “Bet they put you in here because they told you you’re dangerous. To them, we’re all dangerous. Well, fuck that. Whatever the fuck you are, you need to get out.”

Logan pointed at the door. The shadowed shape shifted, tilting towards the door, then back at Logan.

“I mean it.” He pointed again. “Go: get out of here. This place is going down. We’re going to free everyone, and you won’t have to answer to anyone anymore. So you’d better find your own way.” To demonstrate his point, Logan walked over and sliced through the door with his claws. By now the goons chasing him would be gone, if this mutant scared them as badly as Logan thought he did.

Logan added quickly, when he sensed the mutant start to shiver with excitement, “Anybody wearing stupid yellow suits like this”—he gestured to himself—“give ‘em a wide berth. They’re like you and me. Leave the kids and other mutants alone, too.”

He had no idea if the guy heard him, but it didn’t matter; this was a mutant, and they deserved to be free.

And that was what Logan had done. He’d freed this man and made Deadpool.

Logan slammed Deadpool back into the sheets and buried his claws in his abdomen again, a far cry from their first meeting.

“That was you,” he hissed, breathing hard. “You—you were that weird fucker from the Oscorp lab.”

“Wait, you remember me?” Yellowed eyes crinkled behind the shifting smoke. “Did I trigger a flashback and I missed it? Damn it!”

Deadpool. He’d made Deadpool.

“Why?” he asked lowly.

Deadpool just laughed. Logan buried his claws deeper.

“Fu-uu-I meant what I said!” Deadpool gasped. “About you. And me. I…tried.”

“Tried what?” Logan prompted.

“Ugh. Being good. Doing the right thing. But the right thing is hard when there are so many people that would make the world a better place if they were dead!”

Logan was losing patience, fast. “What does your fucked up moral compass have to with me?”

“Look, just take one look at my cosmic karma, and you’ll understand. Bad guy does bad things. Bad guy tries to do good, only it doesn’t work out, and he loses everyone he ever cared about. Sound familiar?”

“You don’t talk about them,” Logan heard himself start, in a voice he barely recognized. “You do not. Talk. About them.”

For a second, a flash of humanity escaped past the sickly visage that was Deadpool’s face. He saw a mouth twisted in discomfort, and when he spoke, his voice shook. 

“Fine, fine. Easier to talk about you than it is me. Your claws really hurt.” Deadpool’s hands twitched towards Logan’s, but he was an immovable weight. “Though not sure it hurts more than the moment I realized I was doing exactly what my ‘creators’ wanted me to do, which was kill someone else’s enemies. I’d get bank, and so what if people died? Good people, bad people, what’s the difference when the numbers get that high?”

He laughed, and for once, he didn’t sound happy about it.

“Still not seeing what this has got to do with me,” Logan said.

“Well, that’s easy. I’ve been doing all this for one reason: you saved me. You made me,” Deadpool said, his tone going reverent. The hair on the back of Logan’s neck stood up at the weight of those eyes. “I wouldn’t be here without you.”

“Bullshit. I didn’t do anything,” Logan growled, and willed himself to believe it. “The X-Men don’t kill if we don’t have to. You don’t get to pin all your shitty mistakes on me.”

“After what happened to all your amigos”—he flinched as Logan buried his claws deeper—“I-I saw you again. You were everywhere, and I’d never forgotten you. Never. Only now you were just like me.”

“We are nothing alike. And I ain’t no hero, kid,” Logan said flatly. He didn’t know how to feel—numb, maybe. He wasn’t sure what to do with himself, so he kept his claws where they were. “If anyone saved you, it was the X-Men. I was just there.”

“Firstly, over thirty here. Edging into uncomfortably close to middle aged territory, but we won’t talk about that.” Deadpool waved a hand. “Secondly, it wasn’t the X-Men—it was you. I don’t think anyone else would have done what you did. I was ready to kill you when first I saw you.”

He knew what it was like to be a raw, broken thing. A tool for others to use. What else was he supposed to do? If he had to do it all over again, he’d still let Deadpool go.

“And you still saved me,” Deadpool added, like Logan might have forgotten in the last few seconds of silence.

There it was again: affection. Admiration. A title he never deserved.

“Though, what we should talk about is my shocking vulnerability while your claws give my stomach a close-up inspection.”

Logan’s stomach churned, unable to reconcile the truth with what was in front of him. This was Deadpool. Deadpool said it himself: Logan had made Deadpool.

“So what, you got free and decided your dream was to become a bloodthirsty killer?” Logan asked. “And that’s supposed to be my problem?”

“Well, when you put it like that.” Deadpool sat up, showing no concern for the claws wedged into his abdomen, and got right in Logan’s face. A bold choice, considering. “I had to take down all the people that hurt me and turned me into this, and like I said, I needed money to do that. OnlyFans wasn’t going to cut it, and Feetfinder only works when they can see your feet.”

“The fuck is wrong with you?”

“A question that has possibly infinite answers. Most of those involve cancer. Try again?”

“So what,” Logan repeated slowly. “So what if I saved you? All right. Now what? You followed me for months. What is it you want? And don’t lie to me,” he added. “I’ll be able to hear your heartbeat stuttering from here.”

“Caliente. I would never lie to you,” Deadpool cooed. “Not unless it benefited me, anyway. You’re crazy hot when you get all growly, did you know that? That little twitch your eye does is just like I remember—”

 “Deadpool.”

“Call me Wade.”

“I’ll call you dead if you don’t answer me when I ask. It’s starting to look like the easier option.”

“Fine, fine.” Deadpool sighed. “I was hoping my passionate speech would better pave the way for this, but the claws are distracting, and here we are. I need…your…help.”

Logan blinked. “What?”

“I need your help,” Deadpool said, matter of fact. “To become…a hero.”

Apparently, Deadpool wasn’t done shocking Logan to his core.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” Logan said. “Nice one. And stop calling me that.”

“Just because it doesn’t leave my mouth doesn’t make it not true,” Deadpool sang. He swiped at the wet blood that had cascaded down his front, accomplishing not much more than smearing it spectacularly. “You’re the Wolverine! You can’t beat the hero allegations.”

“And look what that got me!” Logan snapped, his words exploding out of him in a sudden burst he didn’t expect until it was there. “Do you see any of the other X-Men around here?”

He dug his claws deeper, just to feel Deadpool flinch again. He needed it to hurt; he needed something to hurt worse than he felt hearing all this.

“Well?” he sneered. “Come on, you were so talkative a second ago.”

“Thought we weren’t supposed to talk about them,” Deadpool said, and let out a pained little squeak. “I’m not after the X-Men. I don’t need their help. I want yours.”

One of his hands twitched upward, and Logan really must have been out of it, because he only just now realized Deadpool had swords and a whole armory he could have used against Logan, but hadn’t. He just took what Logan gave him, and hadn’t raised a hand to him.

Meanwhile, Logan was covered in his blood.

What else is new?

“Why the hell should I help you?” Logan asked. “Why should I give a fuck what happens to you?”

“Because you’re the only one who gets it,” Deadpool continued. “You’re the only one—"

For a horrifying moment, Logan worried Deadpool was going to make it about being saved by him again, not in the past tense, but in the now. He couldn’t—he couldn’t. He couldn’t save anyone. He hadn’t saved anyone. He couldn’t do this again.

Deadpool said, “You’re the only one who’s ever looked at me and didn’t try to hurt me.”

Suddenly the suit Deadpool wore began to dissipate, leaving behind an inky black nothing. In the dark, without even the moon to guide him, Logan could barely make out any features. When Deadpool closed his eyes, he looked like he’d been cast in shadow.

“You saw me, like this,” he echoed brokenly, “and you still helped me.”

A few nice words weren’t enough to change his mind, not by a longshot, but here he was, the weight of all the people he’d failed bearing down on him more every day. He tried to block it out, but that only seemed to make it worse.

They’d called out to him. They’d asked after him, needed him, and he had ignored them.

Logan’s head throbbed. His throat was bone dry, and he’d do anything for a drink.

Instead, he pulled his claws out of Deadpool and slid backwards.

“Somebody else,” Logan said, after the silence became too great to bear. “Anybody else.”

Deadpool shrugged. “Don’t have anyone else. I’m a bit of a loner, if you couldn’t read my vibe.”

Logan said, his voice less sturdy than he’d like, “We knew each other all of five minutes. That’s a low fucking bar.”

A flash of teeth. “It’s at the floor. But that’s where we are at this very second.”

“You didn’t…what happened to you was fucked up,” Logan couldn’t help adding. “You don’t need me to tell you that.”

“Do I hear pity? Maybe even sympathy? Is that a yes?” Deadpool’s eyes were wide and beseeching. Fuck.

“Why’d you—” Logan paused, licking his lips. “Then why didn’t you come see me sooner?”

“I honestly don’t remember much after that time?” Deadpool slowly stood, the blood dripping from his wounds slowing before Logan’s eyes. “I couldn’t see you. Couldn’t let you see what I’d become. But I didn’t want to lose you.”

Deadpool looked away. Logan slowly moved to sit back down on the bed. Running his hand down his face, he sighed.

If he closed his eyes, he could practically hear the kids tiptoeing down the halls for a midnight snack. Plenty of them had had trouble with other kids, eating in front of others, or food in general, and it was the only way they’d get anything. He used to make sure the cupboards were well-stocked.

“So just to be clear, all that…weird shit was you,” Logan said, watching him. The smoke kept billowing off Deadpool, like it had somewhere to go. “Following me. Even in my dreams I kept seeing all this…this weird shit.”

“Yep. Though the dream part I was not aware of. Making a mental note for future test subjects…”

Logan decided to pretend that was a joke. “So what’s with the red and black?” He wished he had a cigar, and eyed the one he’d found on the ground. Covered in blood by now, no doubt. “Is that what you really look like? Are you naked right now?”

“As much as the idea of being a free-balling mercenary does appeal to me, I’m wearing clothes under here. All this shadowy stuff is one layer of me, but because I’m a little hard to spot, the red and black was my own creative illusion. Don’t ask me how it works because I don’t know!”

Logan squinted, trying to make out his features. He thought his skin might have been pale. No one talked about what Deadpool really looked like, and maybe no one knew. If Deadpool showed up, you didn’t live to see the next day.

Logan wondered how they’d made him. Made, because he knew a mutated mutant when he saw one. Deadpool was the result of tampering. Experiments.

It made him even more dangerous.

Deadpool shifted in place, blinking bright eyes at Logan. He didn’t seem uncomfortable with the scrutiny, and he couldn’t get rid of the feeling of familiarity, so much so that it skeeved Logan out.

How long had this guy been following him? Was it just months?

I never forgot you.

Entertaining Deadpool felt like a mistake. A mistake piled on mistakes piled on mistakes.

What did he have left?

“I’m not a hero. I won’t fucking pretend to be one.”

Other than Deadpool’s eyes, the rest of him remained dark. Shapeless. Dangerous. He blinked, and a slow smile spread across his face.

Deadpool said, “And I’m a monster.”

Logan let out a breath of air. “Guess we have that in common.”

Standing up, Logan held a hand out to Wade. He didn’t take it, but he hopped up like he’d had a fresh burst of energy.

“So you’ll help me?” he asked excitedly.

“Don’t know what I’m helping you with,” Logan said. “Told you I’m not a hero. Best case scenario…”

He couldn’t even think of one. There were no best cases, not anymore.

“Best case scenario, you keep me out of trouble, at the expense of your long suffering?” Deadpool offered. “Readers love that.”

Logan snorted and scrubbed a hand through his shaggy hair. Deadpool’s presence raised a dozen alarm bells, but there was just something about him. That familiarity shouldn’t have felt comforting. It was different than the old ones that hurt.

This was something new. Something that was his.

Logan glanced out the window. His internal clock told him they had a few hours before sunrise. Inexplicably, he scratched at his chest. His hand lingered, seeking out that feeling that had been torn away earlier.

It was fucked up. What Deadpool had done—how he was able to control him—was supremely fucked. Logan’s skin crawled just thinking about it.

“Don’t ever control me like that again,” Logan heard himself say.

Deadpool went still.

“I can’t help you,” Logan said. He licked his lips. “You need somebody else can teach you how to be a hero, because I sure as fuck can’t.”

“I told you, there’s nobody else.” Deadpool’s energy flared, wisps flying high. “You’re the Bea to my Arthur, the rock to my leaf.” It flared higher, engulfing Deadpool and blurring the lines of his shape. “You are the only one—”

“I can’t help you,” Logan interrupted, pointing a finger at Deadpool, “and I won’t. But if you want to keep following me around like the world’s dumbest idiot, it’s not like I can stop you.”

That stillness was even more severe. Yellow pits bore into Logan as his…smoke slowly settled.

“You try to control me like you did before, I’ll cut you to pieces,” Logan said, and meant it. “Do you understand me?” He waited. “Are we clear?”

“I’d make a ‘come again’ joke, but I’ve lost count of the number of fanfiction that have done the same. Fanfictions? Fanficus? Fanfi?”

Logan ignored him. “I said: are we clear?”

Logan barely stopped his claws from burying themselves into Deadpool’s gut when he abruptly launched himself at Logan and seized his face in hand. Lips sealed over his, and this time, he let it happen.

Unlike last time, Deadpool took his time. Logan didn’t remember how that piece of him had gotten into him before, but this time he felt it. That queasy, offensive feeling from earlier work through his gut until he grabbed the back of Deadpool’s head and pulled back.

“If you’re gonna kiss me, do it right.”

Kissing Deadpool was fucking weird. His lips were shockingly cold, but the inside of his mouth was warm and wet. Logan felt one of Deadpool’s hands as it slid along the side of his face. He hummed into Logan’s mouth, following his lead, eagerness betrayed every few seconds. He couldn’t seem to keep his mouth still, which Logan usually liked, but maybe not at the frantic pace Deadpool set. Logan had to hold him still, grabbing Deadpool’s freezing cold hands to stop him from going overboard.

Logan was pretty sure he felt it when it happened; when that part of Deadpool that had once left him returned, everything just clicked. He remembered this feeling.

When he pulled away, he opened his eyes for the first time to find Deadpool’s wide fucking open.

“Did you even close your eyes, bub?”

“Not a fucking chance,” Deadpool breathed. “No, no, no. You’re mine now. You’re mine. No taksies-backsies.”

The echoing reverb of Deadpool’s voice seemed to strengthen with intent. He repeated it again, “You’re mine.”

He laughed, and it didn’t sound totally sane. Not for the first time, Logan had to wonder what the hell he was thinking.

“I’m nobody’s, bub. Don’t get it fucking twisted.”

Deadpool ignored him. His glee was only slightly concerning, but easily brushed aside, because Logan just didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about anything, at least for one night.

“Seriously, what the fuck,” Wade said. “I’m going to masturbate for hours after this.”

Logan wrinkled his nose. “Shut the fuck up and kiss me again, because you’re not getting a second chance.”

Later, he might reflect on the whole thing and come away with several key regrets. In that moment, though, it didn’t matter. What was inside him couldn’t lead to anything good, but Logan was so empty, he’d do anything to feel full again.

The attention was nice. Deadpool—Wade was intensely attentive, coaxing reactions out of Logan and seeking every point of contact like he was starved for it. His hands wandered, as shockingly cold as the rest of him. It made Logan want to curl up around him and make him warm.

It felt like hours had gone by when it must have been minutes by the time Logan extracted himself from Deadpool. Deadpool whined and chased his lips, but other than letting him sneak in a few chaste kisses, he shoved him back. No matter how much better Logan might be feeling, he wasn’t going to take things any further in the ruins of the X-Mansion. He didn’t even know if Wade could go further. He hadn’t eaten much the last couple of days either, and his stomach was growling in retaliation.

“I’m heading back to my place,” Logan said, holding the straining Deadpool back by his shoulders. He glanced out at the window. The sun was coming up. Had it really been that long?

Leaning back, Deadpool clasped his hands and blinked rapidly, which Logan belatedly realized was his attempt at fluttering his lashes.

“So that means that we—”

“No.”

“Oh, come on! Just like that? You give me everything I’ve ever wanted—including a makeout sesh with Wovlerino—and dip?”

“I never said anything about you coming home with me.”

Deadpool’s shadows shifted, and Logan swore he could see a pout. “But Wolvie! Can’t a girl stick around? By the look on your face, I already know your answer. It’s a fuck ye—”

“No.”

Deadpool deflated, but only for a beat; within seconds, he’d regained his usual demeanor—as far as Logan could tell in the time they’d known each other—and hopped off the bed, swinging his arms. Logan got off the bed and made for the door, and then the stairs, Deadpool—Wade trailing behind him.

After all that, Wade was quiet, for some reason. As they passed open windows, Logan took it as an excuse to get a good look at Wade. The sunlight coming through the window didn’t do much to penetrate Wade’s…whatever, but Logan could see flashes of ruddy skin here and there, until his suit suddenly formed around him and he was Deadpool again.

“We should do this again sometime,” Wade said, sounding odd. Maybe Logan had been staring for too long, but he figured it was deserved after what Wade put him through. They’d reached the main entryway, anyway. “You, me, the ghosts of your past. Making out in your childhood bedroom.”

“It’s not my childhood bedroom.” Logan clapped a hand on Wade’s shoulder. “And probably not.”

“Remember our little deal, Logan,” Wade said, angling his head towards Logan. “You’re mine, and don’t forget it.”

Logan walked past him without answering, half expecting Wade to stop him. Though Logan felt the weight of his gaze, Wade didn’t follow him, and by the time Logan made it to his bike, he was ready to convince himself everything that had just happened was one crazy dream.

Hell, by the time he got home, he had himself half convinced and was fully on his way to denial, if it hadn’t been for the ache in his chest left behind from either Wade’s…smoke or shadows or whatever he called it, and that he’d made it to the morning sober and didn’t feel like complete garbage.

Oh yeah, and the deer he found sitting on his bed was the real kicker. It was grooming itself like it didn’t have a care in the world. There were mud tracks around his room, near the window.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”