Chapter Text
It had been a good workout.
Logan leapt down from a steep outcropping, retracting his claws just as he hit the ground. He let out a growl of victory, giving a swift kick to the smoldering ruin of a tank as he passed it by. A few feet ahead, Cyclops shook his head in remonstration, but his grin was unmistakable. He was as happy about the work as Logan.
"Not bad," he said as Logan walked closer.
Logan shrugged. "Almost took my head off with those blasts."
He smirked. "Next time I'll try harder." Water dripped from his hair, a remnant of the last blast from a particularly cunning water-controlling mutant. The combination military/mutant attack had been one of the better ideas that the Danger Room simulator had come up with. It had taken four attempts for Logan and Summers to defeat it.
Summers pushed his hair back and loosened the zipper at the collar of his uniform. Logan laughed. "Debriefing already?" he asked, stepping closer. Sweat glistened in the tiny triangle of visible skin at Summers's neck.
Summers said nothing, just reached out. His gloved hand closed around the X of Logan's uniform and tugged him forward, and their mouths crashed together. Logan grunted, tasted blood from his lip, and growled again. So today it would be like this. Rough, fast, almost brutal. Fine by Logan. He gripped Summers by the biceps and shoved him back against the rock wall that he'd been sheltering against. Summers grunted but didn't pull his mouth from Logan's, and his hands were making short work of Logan's jeans. Logan used a single claw to free Summers from his uniform -- always in full combat dress, this guy, drove Logan absolutely nuts -- and then retracted it. Summers bit his neck and gripped his waist, ground against him, and Logan groaned. He jerked Summers by the arms and slammed him against the wall, face first, hearing a whoosh of surprised air escape. Logan was taut with energy and adrenaline, still running full throttle from battle, and he could smell the same mix of desire and energy coursing off of Summers.
"Fuck!" Summers cried out as Logan pushed in with barely any preparation. One of his gloved fists pounded against the rock wall. Logan closed his hand around it, held it down with the strength of adamantium behind him. Summers bucked against him, resisting and asking for more at the same time, and Logan was glad to give it to him. He felt Summers sway as his legs gave out under the force of his own orgasm, and with one last thrust Logan came, too.
When Logan pushed himself back, Summers sank to his knees, one hand trailing over the wall as he went, his head finally tipping forward to rest against the stone. Logan gripped his shoulder, worried for a second that Summers had passed out, but Summers nodded, letting Logan know he was fine, still with it. Logan turned around and rested against the wall, let himself slide down to the ground. He was fucked out, the adrenaline gone. He could barely force his fingers to start working on his fly.
Next to him, Summers struggled to unfurl himself. He eventually put a hand out to Logan's shoulder and managed to lift himself up a little so he could turn around, and after he shifted what was left of his uniform back on, he lowered himself gingerly so he was sitting against the wall next to Logan.
Logan took a good look at Summers. Sweat streamed from his hairline and around his visor, and his breathing had yet to slow. His uniform was torn down the front and barely clinging to his shoulders, and his chest had patches of sweat and dirt matted to it. His cheek had a rough patch of purplish-rouge from being pressed against the rock wall.
"You OK?" Logan asked, knowing he'd been rougher than usual, perhaps rougher than ever before.
"Just fine." Summers closed his eyes, something Logan could tell only because the red glow behind his visor dimmed.
"Face got a little banged up, there," Logan murmured, running his thumb over the forming bruise.
Summers shrugged. "I may not heal as fast as you, but I do it all the same," he said.
It wasn't the first time he'd marked him. Hell, at first Logan had been real careful, had made sure to always draw back before his mouth could leave a bruise, before his fingers could clench too tightly. Not because he thought Summers was delicate, but because a mark like that might set Jean to wondering. Summers had never told him to back off, though, and as he seemed as willing as Logan to play rough sometimes, Logan had decided to stop his worrying. They had an agreement, after all: What happened in the Danger Room stayed there, which meant that the marks really weren't Logan's problem to deal with. If Summers was managing to keep his psychic girlfriend in the dark, then Logan thought probably he could come up with a good cover for a few bruises, too.
Summers sat back and stretched his arms out over his head, then rolled his head around with a groan. "God, that was good today, huh?"
"Yeah, we really nailed 'em," Logan agreed, buttoning his shirt.
"And then you really nailed me," Summers said, and Logan chuckled.
"I didn't hear you complaining."
"Well, ask me when I try to sit down for dinner tonight, huh?"
Summers was smiling, so Logan knew it was OK. He stood up and offered Summers a hand, but he waved it away.
"Think I might stay here a bit, sort of get my head back on straight," Summers said, pushing away from the wall and then laying out flat on the ground. Logan couldn't help the admiring once-over he gave Summers, with his flat, muscled stomach exposed by the tear of his outfit.
The outfit. "Say, how're you gonna get back with that thing torn to shreds?" Logan asked.
Summers smiled. His eyes were closed again, and he had one arm under his head. "Don't make me give up all my secrets, Logan."
Logan laughed and let himself out.
Summers was called away that night to fly up to Manchester with Professor Xavier to pick up a runaway mutant. Logan didn't see him until the next evening at dinner. He looked no worse for the wear from Logan's view down the faculty table; his face hadn't bruised after all, or at least not enough that it was visible in the dim dining room light. When he left, though, Logan noticed he was limping slightly, and he had a dual reaction of guilt and arousal, knowing he was the cause. He decided to do something he'd never done before: seek Summers out outside the Danger Room.
Summers had gone from dinner to his office, which was his usual pattern. Jean liked to work late in the lab, Logan knew from experience, so it seemed logical that they'd both be evening work people. Plus, it meant there was little to no chance that she'd stumble in.
Logan rapped on the door and waited until he heard Summers call "Yeah, come in," before he opened it. Summers looked up from his desk in surprise. "Logan," he said, his voice instantly cool. This was how they were, still, outside of the Danger Room. Logan appreciated the rigid control, the discipline, that Summers had over his own emotions. It was part of what made him an excellent guy to go into battle with.
"Gradin' papers?"
"Yes, excellent observation," Summers said, but his tone wasn't too sharp. Nothing like it would've been a year ago. Logan closed the door. "Something I can help you with?"
For a moment, Logan thought maybe that was a come on. Summers had said some similar things to him in the Danger Room. Here, though, there was no scent of desire, just the usual Summers mix of citrus cologne and grassy sweat. "Just checking in. On you," Logan said, leaning back against the door.
Summers looked nonplussed. "Still here," he said, giving a shrug. "Still breathing. Still engaged to Jean. Not going anywhere."
Logan nodded. "Right. Just - you were limping at dinner."
Summers snorted. "Really, Logan, your concern is touching, if a little weird, but I'm fine. Just a casualty from the mission."
"Right." Logan grinned. He couldn't help it. The mission. "Listen, about that. I mean, about yesterday. I was kind of rough. I didn't -- you know I didn't mean -"
"What are you talking about?"
Summers sounded so truly bewildered that, for a moment, Logan wondered if he was going crazy. Then he laughed and shook his head. Discipline. "OK, never happened, got it."
He winked at Summers, then turned and left. He laughed to himself again in the hallway. Guy was so well disciplined you couldn't break him in a closed-off room. You had to appreciate that.
Logan went two days without seeing Summers in the Danger Room. It wasn't unusual. They didn't have a set schedule. Some days, Logan showed up, snapped on his simulation armband, and never caught so much as a scent of Summers. Some days, Summers was already in the room, warming up, when Logan walked in. They never talked about it. Logan always trained at the same time -- 4 in the afternoon, when the building became loud again as the kids got out of classes -- so it wasn't like he made a special effort to bend to Summers's schedule.
They'd been doing it for almost two months now, since about a month after Logan had started working out in the Danger Room regularly. The Professor had recommended he start the sessions, probably sensing Logan's lingering boredom with just hanging around in the school, waiting for either an attack by outsiders or an attack of recall in his own brain. At first, Logan had found the Danger Room to be anything but dangerous; the pre-set scenarios that they used to train the upper-level kids weren't worth his time, and the scenarios for the practice of the faculty were mostly set up for an entire team. He'd mentioned this in passing to Professor Xavier and been rewarded, a few days later, with a simulator armband.
"Wear it when you go in," Xavier had said. "I set up something similar for Scott a while ago. It's a fairly crude psychological relay device. In essence, it broadcasts your physiological and psychological strengths and weaknesses to the simulator, which is then able to calibrate a workout that will best address those things that it wouldn't hurt you to improve."
"So I'm gonna walk in and find an etiquette teacher sitting in the room, is that it?"
The professor had laughed. "It's a bit more sophisticated than that, Logan. Give me some credit."
Logan had been wary of the device at first. Anything that was going to broadcast his thoughts didn't really seem like a good idea. But he'd had Jean and the professor break down the way the thing worked, and after a week's trial, he'd had to admit, the thing was good. The workouts had increased in difficulty and duration while also becoming a bit less predictable. Logan had started to look forward to his sessions in the Danger Room, because he'd never known what might show up next.
Logan walked in that afternoon, simulator armband already locked on, and found the scenario revving up but no sign of Summers. He shrugged it off, rolling his head around and testing his surroundings. Dark, wet forest smells rolled up around him, and even as he looked out, he could see the trees forming into an impossibly high canopy overhead. The smells and sounds of animals were sharp in his nose, and Logan grinned and let his claws slide out. He'd been through here before.
Twenty minutes later, he was crashing through the forest at full speed, weaving between poisonous blasts of green mucus from the mutant following him. He hooked his claws into the meat of a thick tree and started climbing, knowing without even looking back that he didn't have the time to get out of range.
A welcome blast of red light zinged through the air, and before Logan could even glance backwards, the mucus mutant was toast. He craned his neck around the tree and saw Cyclops, hand still raised to his visor, standing about twenty feet away in front of a huge fir.
"Nice of you to join us," Logan said, clambering back down. "I've had that guy on my tail forever."
Summers shrugged. "And here I thought you could take care of yourself."
Logan's feet hit the ground just as a sharp, horrifying screech filled the air. The noise felt like pain in his head, and Logan scratched himself trying to cover his ears before his claws were fully retracted. To the side, he saw a wild burst of red light, then heard an ominous cracking. When he glanced over, he saw Summers kneeling, bent toward the ground, hands over his ears, fingers at the controls for his visor. The tree he'd just blasted was heading right toward him.
"Cyclops!" he shouted, but his voice made no imprint over the unholy wail. He pushed himself to his feet, but the noise had somehow weakened him, and he could only stumble forward in what felt like slow motion. Summers looked up just as Logan yelled his name again, and his eyes must have caught the motion of the tree, because he jerked backwards, and another stream of red light shot forth. Not enough, though, Logan realized as the tree crashed to Earth, battering him with branches as it fell before him.
Logan ducked and covered his head, waiting for the tree to settle. The sound of the crash was so deafening that Logan was on his feet again before he realized that the horrible noise had stopped. Maybe Summers hadn't made an out-of-control shot; maybe the thing making the noise had been in the tree. Logan sniffed, trying to pick up the scent of anything, but only the sharp tang of dying tree and unsettled earth filled his nostrils. He breathed in again and registered another absence. Summers was nowhere on the air.
Logan pushed frantically through the tangle of limbs before him, using his claws to slash a path up to the trunk and then again to help him vault it. He stood on the felled trunk for a moment, looking out and around, trying to find a flash of black or red that might be Summers. He called his name -- both names -- but heard nothing. His heart was hammering in his chest, his instincts taking over. There it was -- the thin scent of Cyclops, of Summers, under the crush of fresh splintered wood. He leapt forward, nearly going to all fours to navigate.
The further he went, the less intact tree there was to push around. He could see Summers, turned on his side, just a few yards away. The wood around him had been scorched and splintered, not just felled, by his last blast, and Logan felt a crack of relief in his chest when he realized Summers wasn't crushed. He'd expected to find him pinned under an immoveable chunk of tree-trunk. Instead, he was curled slightly on his left side, his gloved hands thrown up over his face. Classic protective posture. Discipline, Logan thought, dropping down next to him. He was suddenly glad he hadn't called to end the simulation.
"Wake up, Summers," he said, shaking his shoulder. His fingers came back a little sticky. Logan took a quick breath. Blood. He leaned down and saw a piece of wood the length and breadth of a good dagger embedded just under Summers's shoulder blade. "Aw, fuck," he said. No way was that thing coming out without a doctor around. Logan knew enough about stab wounds to know that often the thing stuck inside was all that was holding the blood in. He looked around, then grumbled, "End simulation." Nothing happened, not so much as a shimmer. Fuck. He'd never had to stop a simulation mid-stream before. He'd always fought either to its end or his own. The machine was programmed not to allow fatalities, but apparently it wasn't calibrated to stop serious injuries. Jesus, Danger Room indeed.
He shook Summers a little harder, and he began to stir with a groan. "Hey, buddy, wake up," Logan said, holding him steady.
"What - Christ," he said, his mouth tightening into a sharp line.
"Got a bit of tree in you," Logan said, not looking at the protruding piece of wood. He kept his hands steady on Summers's arms. "Think you can get Jean from here?"
Jean and Summers had a pretty strong mind bond at times, but Logan didn't fully understand the mechanics. The red glow faded for a moment, then returned. "No," he admitted. His face was twisted in pain. "Not sure I can walk, either."
"Yeah, I don't think that's a good idea." Logan put his hand on Summers's face, an idle move to comfort him, and Summers twisted into it, his mouth brushing Logan's palm. "Sit tight, pal, I'm gonna get her. Bring her right back."
He nodded. One of his hands raised and tapped Logan on the wrist. "End the simulation?"
Logan shrugged. "I tried it."
Summers's eyes closed again. "Hurry, all right?"
Logan took off running.
Finding the door wasn't too hard, at least. He re-traced his own steps through the jungle, and there it was, a slight shimmer at the edge of the forest. He contemplated jamming his claws into the computer screen attached to the door, just shorting the whole thing out, but he'd learned enough about the wiring and programming at the mansion to know that he was just as likely to get Summers stuck in the forest forever as to bring him closer to rescue by messing with the system. So he tapped the red exit button and burst into the hall.
Jean was sitting with a student in her office just off the main infirmary. Logan didn't bother knocking, just flung the door open and said, "Come now."
"Logan -"
"It's Summers."
Jean pushed her chair back. "Scott?" Logan nodded. Jean stood and followed him into the infirmary. She shooed the student out, her voice falsely calm. Logan could smell the fear rolling off of her. "What happened?"
"Some kind of malfunction in the Danger Room," Logan said as she studied a rack of medical tools. "Grab a bag or something, he took a pretty bad hit."
"A hit? In the head?" Jean whirled around, though a gray metal case had already begun to fly down from the top of a tall shelf.
"Stabbed," Logan said. Jean's eyes narrowed, and Logan grunted. He knew what he must look like, mud and a bit of Summers's blood smeared on his shirt. "Not by me. It was a tree. We gonna gab about this or you coming?"
Jean grabbed the case floating before them, and they took off down the hallway. She kept up with him well, and they reached the Danger Room in no time flat. Logan punched the entry code and tapped his fingers restlessly against his pants leg until the doors slid open.
The room beyond them had faded back to its usual silvery-gray. No forest. No tree. And, most importantly, no Summers.
"What the fuck?" Logan said, stepping inside.
Jean followed him in. The doors slid neatly closed behind them, leaving them lit only in the sparse white runner lights. Logan spun around twice, thinking maybe this was a ruse. He went over and tapped the far wall, then turned back to Jean.
She was frowning at him. "Logan, really. This is -- this has got to be the lamest attempt at getting me alone you've ever tried."
"It's not -- he was right here!" Logan said, turning one more time. Not even a hint of Summers in the air. "Fuck! Is it -- do you think the system, could it hide him from us?"
"Oh, grow up, Logan." Jean turned, and the door opened smoothly.
Logan raced after her, heart still pounding. "He was right here! Look in my mind, Jean! This isn't a trick. Something is really fucking wrong here!"
Jean sighed and turned. She shoved the case into Logan's arms, and as he held it, she put her hands on either side of his face. He felt the tiniest tremor of dizziness as her mind brushed his, and then he closed his eyes and let the images -- of Summers, lying on the ground, the wood in his back -- rise.
Jean gasped but didn't draw away. Logan's thoughts tumbled impatiently. His hands itched. He wanted to be doing something, attacking something, fucking fixing the whole mess. "See? You see? He's hurt, we've got to -"
The sting of Jean's hand across his face was completely unexpected. Logan's head snapped to the right. "What the hell?"
Jean's face was red. "You -- you were touching -- you were --"
"Whoa, whoa, hey," Logan said, taking a step back as her hand came up again. "Hey, focus, look, we gotta find -"
"Scott's fine," Jean spat.
"What -- he's not, you saw, you just -"
"Oh, see for yourself."
Even as she said it, Logan heard the sound of rushing footsteps behind him. The peppery sunshine scent of Summers coupled with his strong voice, calling Jean's name, cut the tense string of panic that had been holding Logan together. He turned just in time to see Summers slide past him, reaching for Jean. "Jean, what's going on? I was in class and I felt -"
The slap she'd reserved for Summers looked to be twice as potent as the one Logan had received. Summers stumbled backwards, holding the right side of his face, just where he'd had the bruise earlier in the week. "What the hell?"
"I don't know what kind of game you're playing," Jean said -- no, snarled -- "but this -- I never --"
Logan felt a brief flicker of rage and guttural, visceral hurt in his mind just before Jean turned and ran down the hall. The door slammed behind her before either man could move.
Summers turned to Logan, his face such an exaggerated mask of surprise and fear and bewilderment that Logan would have laughed if Jean's pain wasn't still ringing in his head.
"What the hell happened?"
Logan caught his breath. Summers had turned after Jean, and Logan was staring at his back. Not a scratch on him. He shook his head and took a step backwards. "I don't know," he admitted. He sniffed again, deeply, but nothing had changed. The Summers before him was as real as the Summers in the Danger Room. Logan raised his hand and brushed his fingers over Summers's shirt from the back. Not the slightest hint of distress.
Summers turned and have him an incredulous look. "She knows," Logan said quietly, keeping his eyes focused on Summers's shining red glasses. Summers's eyebrows knit together.
"Knows what, exactly?"
Logan laughed, not at all amused. "Right. I forgot. Do we have to step inside to talk about this?" He gestured toward the Danger Room door.
Summers stared at him for a moment, then took a step closer. "When I find out what you've done to Jean, and I will find out, I'm going to come and find you."
Logan could practically smell the threat rolling off of Summers, and for the first time in at least an hour, he knew exactly how to respond. He stepped forward slightly, deep into personal space that he knew so well, and nodded.
"You do that," he said, growling a little and thumping Summers in the chest. He didn't wait around to hear his reply or smell his desire.