Logan and Marie - Checkups, Wolverine-style.

[x-wolverine.livejournal.com]

Logan takes some time to check on Marie. They put her telepathy to the test, but she doesn't have enough training to deal with his brain. Backdated to the 22nd.



Logan'd heard that Marie had a rough time of it up in SanFran. Something to do with some Tong asshole and her power. So, bravely defying the no-contact request, he knocked on her door with one hand while tightening his grip on the six-pack of Michelob in the other. While he waited for her to get off her ass and open the door, he popped all the joints in his right hand, one at a time. He still wasn't quite as 100% as he thought he should be, even though most of the pain had subsided back down to the normal dull roar and he could walk upright, smoke, and drink again. It was just his joints that were being stubborn.

"That was fast," she said as she opened the door. The smile on her face turned into a surprised look, though still a happy one, when she found her gruff best friend outside her door. "Wondered when you'd be around," she said as she reached out to hug him before letting him in the room.

Logan hugged her back, hard, before letting her go and walking into her room. "Heard you had a rough time of it." he told her, dropping himself onto her desk chair with only two joints popping. "Brought ya a little beer to make you feel better." he said with a grin. He sniffed the air and then smiled. "Gar stopped by." he told her, then looked at her more carefully.

"Not the best of vacations, no," she said, trying to hide her blush at his last comment. Taking the beer he'd brought, she popped the top off and took a long sip. "How are you feeling anyway?" she asked, in a thinly veiled attempt to change the subject.

Logan just laughed at her blush. "About time." he said, and then let the matter go. "Been better." he admitted. "Still creaking, but my lungs seem to be all right now." he elaborated. "I'm too ornery to die." he told her with a wink.

"Damn straight. Plus Ah'd kill you," she said with a smile, relieved that he hadn't pushed the issue. "Ah need you around too much old man." Sitting on one of the couches in the suite, she kicked her feet up onto the coffee table and leaned back, remembering to tighten her shields. She already knew more about Logan than most, but it wouldn't be fair to pick up anything he didn't want her to know.

Logan gave Marie another odd look, but wrote it off to San Francisco residual stress. He cracked open one of his beers and drank a third of the bottle in one go. Nothing quite like an ice-cold beer. No sir. "Need me around, huh?" he asked her with a curious look. "Guess someone's gotta keep the Rogue honest." he teased.

Marie laughed at that. "And someone's gotta keep the Wolverine sweet," she teased back. "An' Ah was honest way before Ah ever met you. Ah'm just a sweet Southern gal, always have been."

Logan grumbled at that, but managed to smile while doing it. "The Wolverine is not sweet." he said, but the thought behind his eyes added that the Wolverine was a brutal killing machine pretending to be something he wasn't. "So you gonna take that boy of yours out sometime?" he asked pointedly.

Marie's brow creased slightly as the word 'killing' passed through her mind, but she pushed it away. "He's not my boy. He's...Ah dunno what he is. He's Garrison." Her face grew warmer and warmer as she spoke, her words almost becoming a stammer in the end.

Logan would deny it with his dying breath but it warmed what passed for his heart to see the two of them like this. He was a good kid and would do well by her. If he didn't, Logan'd just have to cut his balls off and feed them to him with fava beans and a nice Chianti. Logan just quirked an eloquent eyebrow at Marie. "So where you takin' him?" he asked her again. "Fresh outta play tickets." he admitted.

"Stayin' in right now mostly. Ah picked up a little telepathy on my trip," Marie said, much in the same way one would say they'd picked up a little pizza on their way home. "So Ah'm just laying a little low 'till it fades."

"Fair enough." he said, kicking his feet up onto her coffee table and polishing off his beer. "And after it's gone?" he asked. "Not gonna let you run and hide on this one, pun'kin." he told her fondly. "You get out there, look pretty, take the boy out, and _have a good time_. None of this running and hiding, no sabotagin' things because you don't think like you got the right to be normal."

"So y'all keep saying," she said, keeping her voice light. "Maybe we'll go catch a movie next weekend or something. Here there's a new action flick coming out - we can make fun of how they get it all wrong." Marie took another sip of her beer before smiling over at Logan

He was not fooled by her light tone - she was tensing up, shutting down. Same old song and dance out of her. "Might be a good time." he said agreeably. "I'm working on a program in the big room - I suck at programming it. But I'm getting tired of the same old shit." he groused. "Getting sloppy."

"That happens when you get blown up," Marie said. "So let's try and avoid that from now on. But what kinda program?" she asked curiously. It had to be something good if Logan was taking the time to try and program it himself.

"I wanted a challenge." he said simply. "Started it with six-on-one, add another every thirty seconds. And they're all armed - staves, knives, a few guns." he said with an amused grin. "To make it even worse, they've all got vitals sensors set to Scott, err, sadistically sensitive." he said. "That's the hard part." But he did need to find out how to make the internal damage sensors disregard all data on the "Scott" drone. Safer than taking it out on the real thing.

She raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. "Maybe we can run it together sometime," Marie said. "And whoever takes out the least amount of drones gets to pick up the tab at Harry's."

Logan guffawed. "I dunno, I'd hate to destroy the ego of such a fine, upstanding little girl like you." he taunted. "And hey. You're telepathic now, right?" he said, musing. "Read my mind."

"Ah dunno that Ah want to see your thoughts. Something tells me they're dirty," she said, reaching out to poke him gently in the side. Creasing her brow, she looked at him and then carefully lowered part of her shields and send a tendril of thought questing outwards.

Logan kept his thoughts as still as possible and didn't fight the probe at all. He was half-expecting Marie's stolen mindtouch to hurt like hell but the probe was only perceptible as a pressure against his mind because he was waiting for it. He held back a faint wince as her probe fumbled into his mind - and promptly got eaten for breakfast by the criss-crossing series of blocks, scars, dead zones, and Bermuda Triangles that comprised his mind. But before the blocks set in fully a flash of memory jumped the gap between them.

~And so, Your Honor, the prosecution has demonstrated why the man standing before you is completely unfit to wear the uniform...~ said a voice from somwhere to the right, one that seemed controlled on the surface but was laced heavily with disgust and loathing.

Marie withdrew her probe with a gasp, shields slamming back into place. Shaking her head, a slight shudder ran through her body and she reached out to gulp down the rest of her beer. She didn't comment on what she'd seen, just reached out to squeeze Logan's shoulder. "Your mind's complicated," she finally said.

"No shit." Logan said wearily, reaching down for another beer. "You get anything?"

"Army maybe?" she said as she set the empty bottle down. "It was kinda fuzzy and there was only a snippet. Looked like a trial of some sort." Marie watched Logan's face carefully, unsure if this was old or new news for him.

Logan thought about it for a second. "No clue, darlin'. Maybe I was military. Would explain how I wound up in Bill's little science fair..." he mused.

"Yeah," she said with a shrug. "Don't really know that. Plus, not like Ah know what Ah'm doing, y'know? Could be Ah have that all wrong." Marie ran a hand through her hair, twisting the ends around her finger.

Logan reached out to Marie's gloved hand and stopped her from twirling her hair around her finger. He didn't say anything, he just gently lowered her hand back to her lap. "Look, kid." he said hesitantly, trying to find a way to say something important to him. "I'm ... proud of you." he told her finally.

Blinking in surprise, Marie cocked her head. "For what?" Considering she'd just spent the last few days in San Francisco getting possessed, she wasn't quite sure what she'd done to make her best friend proud.

"Just for being you. For standing tall, even in defeat. For the progress you've made. For being a fine young woman I'm proud to think of like family. For risking, falling down, and risking again." he said calmly. ~For being better than I am~

Marie wrinkled her brow as something about better passed through her mind. "Thanks," she said with a blush. "That means a lot to me." She locked eyes with him, smiling. "You know Ah learned a lot of that from you right? How to make mistakes and come back from them stronger than Ah was."

"When did I ever figure that out?" he said wonderingly. "Figure you just gotta stand up for what you believe in." he said. "As soon as you know what that is."

"Because a gruff old man didn't leave a Mississippi river rat alone on a cold road. And that same man was willing to sacrifice his life multiple times for that lil' slip of a girl." Marie squeezed Logan's hand. "And it's not just me you've got a soft spot for."

Logan snorted, but he squeezed her hand back. "This sappy shit is gettin' to me. C'mon, kid, let's go take a ride in your Bug." he said, standing up. "Feel better to get the wind in your hair."

"Raincheck?" Marie asked. "Still a little loud out there for my tastes." Glancing up, she smiled shyly. "Or what about a flight instead? Jean showed me that when you go up high, everything else gets real quiet."

Logan thought about that one for a few seconds. "Sure." he said with a shrug. He could handle it if she got overwhelmed and dropped him. Skydiving without a chute was fun - right up until the part where he went splat.

"Ah won't drop you," she said somewhat indignantly as she headed for the door, his thoughts reaching her clearly for once. Turning to look at him over shoulder, she winked. "Not unless I want to anyways."

"That's what they all say, kid." he said with a grin.