Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Alchemax facility was smaller than it looked online. The high-definition photos of the campus in Manhattan made it seem like it was a large part of the New York skyline. In person, however, it was a sleek, if squat, tower, barely clearing 30 floors but made with enough steel and glass to make it stand out among the older buildings around it. It looked every bit the part of the cutting-edge medical and biochemical research facility it was said to be. 

Logan felt a deep sense of unease standing there. If it wasn’t for Wade beside him, holding his hand to keep him in place, he might have bolted. He didn’t like the idea of being a guinea pig for a new drug, no matter how much it might help him. He didn’t want to be an experiment again. 

“See, Peanut? It’s not so intimidating in person. Barely even looks like a building Lex Luthor would own.”

Logan, long accustomed to Wade’s odd allusions, shook his head. “Whoever the fuck that is. Looks like some evil corporation out of a movie.”

Wade tutted. “Barely.” Logan turned a sardonic expression to his mate. “Look, I admit it is a bit unnerving, but if the drug they have really can slow the adamantium poisoning, it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

Logan grunted in response. Years ago, knowing his healing factor would eventually run out of juice thanks to his metal bones would have been a relief. Something to look forward to. Penance for his crimes. But now he had built something of a family on Earth-10005. He had friends, a daughter (however convoluted their true relation was), and a mate. He had more than he could have ever hoped for, far more than he thought he deserved. But all of them loved him (an alien concept when the Worst Universe had reviled him so fiercely), and he’d be damned if he gave up when he knew just how his death would affect them. 

So, when Wade and Laura had come to Logan with the brochure from Alchemax calling for participants in a trial for a new drug that might slow the poisoning, he had begrudgingly agreed. They didn’t want to lose him the way the other Wolverine had been lost. He could at least try to find a cure for the poisoning.

“It’s not going to work,” Logan said. Wade took a step forward, tugging Logan along. 

“That’s quitter talk. I thought there wouldn’t be a cure for my cancer, and yet here I am! Immortal as ever.”

Logan made a face but followed Wade inside. “Look what you had to go through to get there.”

“What, Francis’ little house of horrors? A cake walk, honestly. All it cost me were my stunning good looks.”

They entered the building and were greeted by a woman at the front desk wearing her fiery red hair in a bun. She smiled at them as they entered. 

“Welcome to Alchemax. May I have the patient’s name?”

Anxiety stayed his tongue until Wade elbowed him in the side. When he spoke, it was through gritted teeth. “Logan Howlett.”

The receptionist looked down at her computer. “Ah, yes! For the cytogenolone trial, correct?”

Another nudge from Wade when he took too long to answer. “Yes.”

“Perfect. If you’ll just fill out this paperwork—” the receptionist slid a couple dozen sheets of paper into a clipboard, “—we’ll get you back.”

Logan took the clipboard and frowned at it as Wade steered him towards the chairs to the side of the door. 

“Why do they need to know any of this?” Logan flipped a few pages back. “This is a regenerative drug. Do they really need to know how many times I’ve been sexually active in the last month? How am I even supposed to know the answer to that?”

“Now now, Ron Swanson, I’m sure it’s not for nothing,” Wade said with a pat on Logan’s arm. “And, considering it’s the twenty-fourth of April, I believe the answer to that question is ‘twenty four times.’”

Logan grunted but scribbled “twenty-four” in the line. He felt on edge, every sense alert for some danger that had yet to present itself, but he somehow managed to fill out all the pages he’d been handed. This included an extensive fifteen page contract absolving Alchemax of any liability for injury incurred while taking the new drug. Once he’d weighed the pros and cons of this, he signed it and returned to the receptionist. He slid the clipboard across the desk back to her. The woman’s smile, likely meant to disarm Logan, only served to make him more nervous. 

“I’ll let them know you are here.”

Logan returned to Wade and sat down, his leg bouncing anxiously. Wade immediately took Logan’s hand again. It was almost as if he was afraid that if he wasn’t holding onto Logan, the other would leave the building altogether. The two waited in silence until a man in dark blue scrubs appeared behind the desk. He picked up the clipboard Logan’s contract was on and flipped through it, no doubt checking to make sure every question had been answered and every signature was there. 

“Logan Howlett?”

Wade stood first, almost dragging Logan to his feet. The nurse seemed nonplussed by Logan’s reluctant behavior and ushered the two mutants behind the desk into the stark white hallways of the building proper. 

“If you could just verify your date of birth for me,” the nurse was saying. 

“October 12th.”

“And year?”

“1823.”

The nurse didn’t falter, just nodded his head and pointed to a scale on the wall. “We’ll need a weight from you as well.”

Logan eyed the scale, which seemed sturdier than the average bathroom scale, and wondered if his metal frame would break it. Without hesitation he stepped up and watched the numbers on the digital display jump. Finally, they settled on 376 pounds. Again, no reaction from the nurse but to scribble something on paper and flip the clipboard closed. He then led the two mutants to a seemingly random room that looked identical to those around it. “We’ll be in here.”

The interior of the room felt too sterile for Logan’s liking. It had a bed covered in paper sheets, a single chair against the wall, and a counter with a sink to the right of the door. Everything was in shades of white and grey. Logan’s heart thudded heavily behind his metal ribs. 

I hate this I hate this I hate this.

Wade squeezed his hand reassuringly. In a rare moment of seriousness, he whispered, “It’s alright.” The volume of his voice was so low only Logan’s sensitive hearing could likely pick it up. 

“If you’ll just have a seat over there, please.” The nurse motioned to the paper-covered bed. Logan did as he was told, bristling as the paper crackled beneath his significant weight. Wade stood beside him, his hand not leaving Logan’s.

“Now,” the nurse began, holding the clipboard to his chest and leaning back against the counter. “I’m sure you’ve read the literature, but company policy dictates I must go over the drug and it’s effects once more.

“Cytogenolone is a corticosteroid injection designed to stimulate cell regeneration and promote healing. It binds to inflammatory proteins and prevents long-term inflammation that can hinder the healing process. It also aids in the proliferative and remodeling stages of healing. It is hoped that one day it could facilitate organ and limb regrowth, but right now it will serve to support your healing factor in fighting off the adamantium poisoning.”

It was all well and good, and sounded nice on paper. But with every new drug came new side effects. Cytogenolone was no exception. 

“Reported side effects include bruising, edema, insomnia, mood swings, increased appetite, and weight gain.” The nurse smiled pleasantly at Logan, as though describing the weather. 

“Is that all?” the mutant said sarcastically. 

“It’s highly unlikely any of these will affect you, of course.”

“See, Peanut? Not so bad,” Wade said helpfully. 

Logan grunted in response. “Then let’s get this over with.”

“Of course.” The nurse inclined his head. “I'll need to draw some blood first, so we have baseline values to compare future tests to. I will be right back with the medication and phlebotomy supplies.” And he exited the room, leaving Wade and Logan alone. Logan leaned forward and scrubbed both hands down his face. 

“I hate this.”

“I can’t say I blame you,” Wade said. “Weight gain? Sounds awful.”

“Wade.”

“C’mon, Wolvie. This can’t bear any resemblance to Stryker’s lab.”

“It’s the smell. The disinfectant is the same everywhere. Brings back memories.”

“Yeah, but it’s been decades since you smelled it, right?”

Logan was silent for a beat. “I smelled it with Kevin.”

“Kevin was trying to break you, though. This medication will heal you.”

“Maybe. But it doesn’t help that it still smells the same.”

Wade dropped Logan’s hand and made his way over to the chair against the wall. “This is a bastardization of the time-honored tradition of the cuck chair.”

Logan couldn’t help but laugh, which was undoubtedly Wade's goal. “It’s a role reversal. The person on the bed feels like shit instead.”

“Hopefully you won’t feel like shit for long, and then we can go home and I can fuck your brains out as a consolation prize.”

“Or we could leave now and you could do that in the back of the taxi.”

Wade fell silent. When he spoke next, his voice was quiet. “Would you really rather die than get this shot?”

Logan exhaled through his nose. No, he didn’t want that. Not anymore, at least. There had been a time when the thought of dying would have been a blessing. He was fighting his own past demons. Wade had risked everything to get better for Vanessa. Logan had no right but to do the same for Wade and Laura. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t reliving shit he’d rather forget, and it felt an awful lot like being back with Kevin.

That was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? It wasn’t just the memories of Stryker’s facility that Kevin had dredged to the surface. It was other flashbacks, a time before Wade and Laura and Earth-10005, when he was the worst version of himself. Going on two years since the twisted alpha had imprisoned and tortured him, and Logan was still dealing with the psychological fallout.

“I have shit to work through, but you should know if you weren’t here I never would have made it this far. I hate this, yeah. Once upon a time I would’ve rather died. But not anymore.”

“Sounds like I’m your girl worth fighting for,” Wade said in a sing-song voice. Logan raised an eyebrow, and his mate scoffed. “Oh, please. Mulan? Disney? They own us now. You should be well-versed in their classics.”

At that moment the nurse returned, holding a caddy with tubes and needles, a vial with a rubber top, and a single capped syringe that wasn’t nearly as large as Logan had been imagining. "The blood draw is first. If you'll please remove your left arm from your sleeve, we can get started."

Focusing on his breathing, Logan obediently shrugged out of his flannel shirt and offered his arm. The blood draw was relatively painless, but Logan had to wonder why they needed so many vials of blood in so many different colors. Two of each: gold, light blue, lavender, and green. The nurse labeled the tubes, inverted them a couple of times each, and set them aside. He then picked up the rubber-stopped vial and the remaining syringe.

“Now, we dose based on body weight, which means you’ll get a larger dose than our average participant."

“Lucky me,” Logan said with a sigh. The nurse drew up the correct dose and flicked off the syringe’s cap. 

“You’ll feel a slight poke, but I’ve been told the flu shot is worse.”

“And I get those so often.”

Wade smirked from the chair, but the nurse’s only response was to sink the needle into Logan’s upper arm and deliver its payload. The nurse had been right; it hardly stung, and when he pulled the syringe out the wound had already healed. 

“All done. We’ll see you in a month for your next injection, and please don’t hesitate to reach out regarding any concerning side effects. Just follow the corridor back to the lobby. You are free to go.” And then the nurse turned and left for the last time, taking with him the tubes of Logan's blood and depositing the syringe and used phlebotomy needle in a sharps container as he went.

Logan pulled his flannel back on and hopped off the bed. 

“Was that so bad?” Wade asked. Logan eyed him and smirked. 

“It was horrible. You better make it up to me somehow.”

Wade tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I seem to recall telling you’d I’d fuck you into next year.”

“That might do it.”

“Good. You’ll have to wait for us to ride the Q home, though; I’m not getting in a taxi during rush hour.”

Logan shrugged. “That just means we have to go two rounds when we do get home.” He exited the room, Wade on his heels. 

“Love the way you think, Peanut.”

They left the Alchemax building hand in hand, headed for the nearest subway station a block away. Logan felt some sort of way after the injection, but he couldn’t help but be a bit proud of himself for going through with the treatment. Kevin was only a distant memory at this point, with no further hold on Logan. He was healing from the emotional wounds that been opened two years ago. And, with the alpha gone, there was no way to reopen them. 

At least, that’s what Logan told himself.

Chapter Text

“How did the appointment go?” Laura asked Logan the next day, shoveling a spoonful of bubblegum ice cream into her mouth. They sat at a picnic bench on Xavier’s grounds, enjoying the spring sunshine. It was a tad chilly to be out and about with ice cream, but Logan and Laura, by the nature of their mutations, ran hot, and were therefore comfortable where others might have needed a light jacket. 

“Fine,” Logan answered. His scoop of choice was maple walnut, which Wade constantly teased him about. “How Canadian of you,” he’d say, to which Logan pointed out that it was Wade’s second-favorite behind Moose Tracks, and that was almost more Canadian. “We’ll have to wait for the next appointment to see if it does anything.”

“It will,” Laura said matter-of-factly. 

“You’re so sure about that.”

Laura shrugged. “It has to work.” She took another bite of ice cream and looked off at the mansion some distance away. Logan sighed. He understood Laura’s need to keep him around, after watching her Wolverine get impaled by a tree. And he would stick around as long as possible. But he couldn’t help but think it might be too soon to make any judgements, and in the long run it might hurt her more. But he couldn’t bring himself to ask his twenty-year-old daughter to be practical. They’d cross that bridge when they got there. 

“Thanks for coming to visit today. Classes have been so boring.”

“What are you learning?”

“Statistics, for one. God, I hate numbers. And alpha and beta.”

“What about omega?” Logan could almost hear Wade ask, and was abundantly grateful he’d chosen to spend the day with Peter instead of tagging along to Xavier’s. 

“There has to be something you’re enjoying.”

“Sparring is pretty fun. I think I’m Coach Corsi’s favorite.”

“Not surprising. You’ve got experience that the other students don’t have.”

“Yeah. Like fighting in the Void and shutting Kevin back there for good.” Laura smiled at the memory. “How’s Wade doing?”

“Just as anxious to see if the treatment works as you,” Logan answered. 

“Well, when you know for a fact it’s working, we should all go to Montreal for drinks.”

Logan blinked and looked down at her. “Montreal? Why Montreal?”

Laura grinned. “Cuz the drinking age is under 21 in Canada.”

He shook his head. “You really are my daughter.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yeah. I’ll buy you your first glass of whiskey if this works.”

“We’ll know in a month?”

“Or two, something like that.”

“I’m holding you to that. In two months, I get my first glass of whiskey.”

Logan smirked. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Now eat your ice cream,” Laura ordered, motioning to his nearly-liquid bowl of maple walnut. “It’s melting.”

A month came and went, and Logan and Wade returned to the Alchemax building. The same nurse they’d had before drew Logan’s blood again, but before giving the cytogenolone injection, they had to wait for the heavy metal test to come back to see if the adamantium levels in Logan’s body had diminished any discernible amount. It was an uncomfortable wait in the sterile room. 

The smell, for one, was much stronger this time. The overpowering disinfectant odor made him almost dizzy. The sparseness of the exam room, too, felt alien and uncomfortable. Everything about the space they were in was uninviting. Logan couldn’t wait to leave. But, it seemed, that wouldn’t be happening for a while.   

“He’s been gone too long,” Logan muttered, staring at the door. “Something’s wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong, Peanut,” Wade answered, but his finger tapped anxiously on the armrest of the not-a-cuck chair. “It probably just takes—” here he looked at the Adventure Time watch on his wrist, “—forty-three minutes to run the test.”

That seemed like an awfully long time to run his blood, but Logan didn’t know anything about heavy metal tests. Still, six more minutes passed before their nurse returned with a printout, a rubber-stopped vial, and a syringe. In that time, Logan’s mental fog had grown thicker, harder to think through. He forced himself to focus on the nurse’s unremarkable face to keep himself present. 

“I reviewed your test results with our doctors on staff,” the nurse began. “Initially, your blood adamantium levels were hovering around 120 micrograms a deciliter. That’s…a lot. Safe levels are below 5 micrograms per deciliter. It’s no wonder you were worried about the effect on your healing factor. It’s working overtime to keep you alive, I’d say.”

“Well that sounds terrible,” Wade said. Logan looked down at the ground, a muscle working in his jaw. 

“It’s not great,” the nurse continued. “But the good news is, the cytogenolone did bring it down. After only a month on the treatment your levels are down to 93 micrograms per deciliter. Still not ideal, but your body is able to clear the adamantium faster, more efficiently. This means it’s causing less damage. We looked at your C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate—those are markers of inflammation—and they are down considerably. And it’s only the first month.”

“So it’s…working,” Logan said slowly. 

The nurse nodded. “It’s too early to say just how much it will or won’t end up helping, but we’re on the right track. Have you noticed any side effects at all?”

Logan thought back over the past month, a mighty feat considering his mental fog. There had been bruising, however brief, but given his and Wade’s extracurricular activities, he didn’t attribute that to the drug. “No.”

“That’s great news. We’ll meet back a month from today’s injection, check your levels again, and start to get a feel for just how much we can expect the cytogenolone to do.”

The second injection was as painless as the first, and less than ten minutes later Wade and Logan were out on the sidewalk in front of the Alchemax building. Wade didn’t hesitate before throwing his arms around Logan’s neck. 

“I told you it would work, Peanut!” he crowed. 

Logan hugged his mate back. He’d expected his mind to clear once out of the room, but the fog was only growing stronger. “Laura’s confidence rubbed off on you.”

“Maybe,” Wade answered. “Or maybe my confidence rubbed off on her. Or maybe we were both equally confident and you’re the only one with doubts.”

That was highly likely, but Logan couldn’t hide that he was relieved to hear about his numbers going down. He’d had no idea how dire the situation was, or that his levels were over two thousand times the safe limit. And they’d been like that for years. It made him stop and think just how much time he’d been robbed of, how much Stryker had taken from him, how much sooner death would creep up on him…

“Hey, woah, wherever you’re going, stop it,” Wade said, taking Logan’s chin in his hand and forcing the omega to look him in the eye. Wade’s comforting smell wreathed around Logan, grounding him. “This is a happy time. We’re happy. And we’re going to celebrate. How do you want to celebrate?”

And it hit Logan then, why the fog wasn’t clearing and why the smells were so intense. His brow furrowed, and he pulled his phone from his pocket to check the calendar app. This couldn’t be right. His last heat had been two months ago. He wasn’t due for another for a while. 

“Logi Bear?”

“I think…Maybe the drug does have a side effect,” Logan answered.

Wade frowned. “And that is…?”

“I’m going into heat.”

His mate’s brows shot to his forehead. “Again? Didn’t you just have one?”

“Yeah, it’s too soon. I think the drug might have triggered it. Something to, uh…” Logan pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to concentrate around Wade’s scent and the smells of the city. “Something to keep in mind for next time. Can’t very well tell the Alchemax people what a heat is, right?”

Wade was obviously concerned, but nodded. “Let’s get you home. We’ll worry about the rest later.”

It was, in fact, a heat, and it came on fast. Faster than Logan had had one manifest in a long time. No preheat stage, just bam! Sex-crazed. The ride home on the Q was interesting to say the least. Logan did his damnedest to control himself, and to some degree the oppressive smells of urine and humanity on the subway took him out of the mood just enough to maintain a respectable composure. That dissolved the moment they walked through the door to their apartment. His cock was hard, slick soaked his thighs, and he was desperate to be fucked by Wade. 

But Wade seemed to be in no hurry to fuck him. He looked worried, and it was the ultimate mood killer. 

“Relax, babe,” Logan said, descending on Wade and kissing and licking at the crook of his neck. “This isn’t the end of the world.”

“It came on so fast…”

“They can do that.”

“I didn’t read anything about that in your universe.”

“God, this again? Can’t you just trust me? I lived for two hundred years in that godforsaken world. Sometimes it happens. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Wade stubbornly kept his hands to himself. “I can’t get in the mood when I think this might mean something more serious.”

Logan growled in frustration, grinding himself against Wade’s thigh in an effort to get the friction he needed. “You worry too much. You have my full permission to go read up on this. After it passes.”

“But—”

“We can’t do anything to stop it. I’m either miserable for a week, or you help me through this. What’ll it be?”

Wade sighed, but a switch flipped in him and he slowly grinned. His hands found their way to Logan’s ass and gave it a squeeze. “Can’t let that happen.” And, in a feat that never failed to impress Logan, Wade managed to pick him up and carry him to the bedroom. His mate was strong, and that was such a turn on. Everything between his legs demanded attention and he was getting desperate. 

Finally, Wade deposited him on the bed and stripped off his own clothes. Logan was already reaching for his shirt, eager to have nothing between him and his mate. His skin was flush and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. This made peeling off his clothes that much more difficult. 

“Normally I have time to plan these things out. I don’t have any ideas queued up this go around,” Wade said as he dropped on the bed next to Logan. He hooked his fingers in the belt loops of Logan’s jeans and started to pull them off. His skin brushed the other mutant’s, leaving a trail of white-hot fire behind, and it nearly sent Logan spiraling over the edge. 

“Fuck’s sake, I should just claw them off,” he gasped. Wade laughed and ripped the jeans off with a flourish. He discarded the torn garment on the floor. 

“That was your second-to-last pair. Keep this up and you’ll have to squeeze into mine.”

“Not a concern at the moment.”

“What is your concern?” Wade asked, lip cocked coyly. He leaned over Logan and trailed a finger up the mutant’s bare abdomen. Logan shivered at the touch. 

“Jesus, you always enjoy this,” he growled. 

“I like to be wanted.”

Logan’s eyes darkened with desire. “Then fuck me like you know I need you.”

“In the immortal words of Westley from The Princess Bride, ‘As you wish.’” One hand went to Logan’s cock, offering delicate touches that drove the omega mad, while the other sank deeper between his thighs to the simmering heat within. “Have I ever told you how lucky I am to have you?”

Logan was panting heavily on the bed, unable to do more than writhe under Wade in an attempt to drive the other man’s fingers further into him. 

“You give me the full package, baby. A cock, a pussy, and an asshole, all mine for the taking.” Wade hooked two fingers against Logan’s walls and slowly pulled them out, eliciting a moan from the omega. He began to pump them in and out with more speed while his other hand worked up and down Logan’s shaft. “And dammit if that isn’t the hottest thing. Irresistible, even.”

“You’re—ah—taking a long time for someone who can’t resist,” Logan hissed. 

“This isn’t a sprint, Peanut, it’s the Boston marathon. Biggest race of the year, and I’ll be dead if I run out of steam on day one.”

“That’s never stopped you before.”

“Like I said. I could plan before. You’ve rudely sprung this on me and given me no options but to improvise.”

“That’s your thing. Improvising.” Logan was rapidly losing the ability to speak coherently with Wade working him from below.

The merc tilted his head down to suck at Logan’s nipple. “You’re so right. Guess we’ll start vanilla and move onto the freakier stuff later.” He pulled back just enough to line his own rock-hard cock up with Logan before sinking his full length inside the omega. That was what Logan wanted. That was what he craved. 

“Oh fuck!” His back arched off the mattress and he couldn’t bite back the curse as Wade pulled back out, then pushed back in again. It was blinding, it was leg-shaking, it was everything. And he wasn’t even close to the end. 

The marathon continued, with breaks between each round for Logan to rest. Wade slipped off somewhere the first time to make a phone call or two, likely cancelling plans in light of this unexpected heat, but Logan couldn’t be brought to care what was being said. Though food sounded awful, he hadn’t had a chance to up his calorie intake the week prior, and he could already feel a weakness dragging at his limbs. He was going to be ravenous when this ended. 

But that didn’t matter right then. Wade returned a few minutes later with a glass of room temperature water and a straw, encouraging Logan to take small sips while seemingly egging him on for the next round. “Put those lips on that hole. Suck on that straw for me. Yeah, just like that you nasty little honey badger. Look me in the eyes when you swallow, just how I like it.”

When this was over, Logan would be unnerved by the speed and ferocity at which the heat came to him. He would even consider taking the tempad and returning to his own universe to see if inducing heat was a side affect of corticosteroids. But in the moment none of that mattered. 

All that mattered was that Wade was there to meet his every need, and he always would be. 

Chapter Text

The heat passed, leaving Logan feeling like a wrung-out dish rag—weak and spent. He devoured three extra large pizzas upon first waking, and had polished off two more by noon. 

“You’ve gotta be Little Caesar’s best customer at this point,” Wade said, watching Logan from across the dining room table with his chin resting on his fist. “I think your picture should go on their wall somewhere. Guinness World Records material right here.”

Logan, in response, ordered a sixth pizza on Doordash. “What did we miss this week?”

“Well,” Wade said, holding up a hand and ticking each item off on his fingers, “Game night with Dermot and Vanessa, a mission for Sister Margaret’s, and—oh yeah—Laura called you three times. You should reach out to her.”

Logan glared. “You could have led with that.”

“It’s nothing urgent. I think she just wants to know what the Alchemax results were.”

“And you didn’t tell her?”

Wade pressed a hand to his chest in mock indignation. “Wolvie! How dare you suggest I wouldn’t keep my step-daughter in the loop. Of course I told her things were looking up. But she insisted on talking to you about whiskey. What have you been telling her?”

Logan was already dialing Laura’s number. “I may have promised her her first glass in Montreal if my results turned out well.”

“Corrupting the youth! I’m so proud. But don’t worry, I made up excuses for why you couldn’t answer the phone. I don’t think she bought any of them, though.”

Logan rolled his eyes and put the ringing phone to his ear. Laura picked up on the third ring. “Logan?”

There was worry in her voice. Logan winced. “Hey, kid. Sorry I was…indisposed.”

“Wade said you took up ballet.”

Logan shot Wade an exasperated look. “Did he now.”

“That’s bullshit, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t say ballet, I said musical theater!” Wade shouted from across the table. 

Logan turned his back on his mate. “Yeah, it’s bullshit. I, um. Something came up. I promise it’s nothing. I just couldn’t answer the phone.”

“I just wanted to know you were okay.” Laura’s voice was small over the line. 

“Yeah, good as ever. And the medication is helping. We’re gonna give it one more month to see just how much it’s doing.”

“And then we’re going to Montreal, right?”

“I’m a man of my word.”

“I thought you were Jean Valjean,” Wade spoke up again. Logan sent the empty pizza box flying his way in response. 

“I know it’s hard, but focus on your schoolwork instead of worrying about me. I have Wade to watch my back.”

Laura sighed. “I know. Could you come to the school this Friday? We could grab lunch.”

Logan glanced at Wade. “I think we can swing that.”

“Good. I’ll see you Friday. Don’t disappear again.” And she disconnected the call. 

Wade leaned forward in his chair. “What did you commit us to?”

“Friday at Xavier’s.”

“I’m so glad you’re on speaking terms with the X-Men now.”

“Well…” Speaking terms was being generous. Logan didn’t actively ignore them, but he still felt wildly uncomfortable in their presence, even after two years. He saw their faces—Scott, Jean, Kurt, Anna Marie—and he saw his own failures. He saw their bodies twisted as clearly as if Kevin himself was projecting them in front of him. It felt like he was around walking ghosts. 

And, from what he knew of the X-Men of this timeline, they were walking ghosts. In the future something would happen and they would all die save for this timeline’s Logan and Charles. The TVA had warned them not to interfere, as it was a fixed point in time, but Wade still made comments on the regular about preventing it. Not that he’d ever even told Logan what “it” was, exactly, and even Laura only knew parts of it. 

The fact remained that Logan didn’t want to become too attached to people who he’d seen die once and that were doomed to die again. 

“Okay, maybe not speaking terms, but ‘existing around’ terms,” Wade amended. “Not-actively-avoiding terms. Might-even-exchange-a-few-words terms. Which reminds me…”

Logan turned to his mate, noticing the sudden shift in his tone. “What?”

“Well, Laura was really freaked out that you couldn’t come to the phone. Like, I had to talk her down from coming to the apartment.”

“What does that have to do with speaking?”

“You should talk to her. About…this.”

“About what?”

“Your heats.”

Logan physically recoiled at the suggestion. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” His secondary sex was an aberration in this world, and Wade may have been accepting, but that didn’t mean everyone would be. Logan had been on the other end of acceptance often enough in the Worst Universe to not want to bring it up. He didn’t want to alienate Laura by telling her something she didn’t really need to know.

“Why not? It would save her from getting worried if your heat hits unexpectedly again. I did my research while you were asleep. I know it’s rare, but irregular heat cycles can be a side effect of certain drugs.”

“I don’t want her to know, Wade. Leave it.”

Wade, who looked like he had a whole script left to recite, angrily snapped his mouth shut. However, his frosty attitude melted only seconds later; he could never stay mad for very long. “What are you feeling for today?”

Logan relaxed, relieved that Wade had dropped the subject. “You said we missed an assignment?”

“Yup.”

Logan stood. “Then I’d guess we should make it up. Those pizzas aren’t going to pay for themselves.”

Another month came and went, and Logan’s adamantium values continued to drop along with his inflammation numbers. It really seemed like they’d found the solution to the metal coating his bones. Logan was, however, noticing side effects, which he considered odd. For one, his appetite had ramped up…and for the oddest things. He didn’t think much of it until Wade found him drizzling melted Hershey’s bars onto an entire package of crispy apple wood smoked bacon. 

“Whatcha’ doin’ there, Peanut?” the merc said, standing at the entrance to the kitchen in nothing but an oversized Hello Kitty sweatshirt. 

Logan looked down at his plate of chocolate-drenched pork. “Making breakfast?”

“For who? A pack of pregnant woman?”

“Me.”

“That’s a lot of sweet and savory for just one Logi Bear.”

Logan only swiped his plate off the counter and walked around Wade, muttering under his breath. 

The mood swings were another thing he was not used to. Logan liked to consider himself a pretty even-keel guy, if somewhat on the “grumpy spectrum,” as Wade put it. He never cried. Never. So he had nothing and no one to blame but the cytogenolone when Wade hosted girl’s night with Laura, Yukio, Ellie, and Vanessa, and he teared up over The Notebook. He covered it up with a sneeze and left in a hurry, but he was certain at least Wade had seen the unshed tears in his eyes. Embarrassing as shit, but worth it, because, three doses in, the drug was working. 

When he told Laura, she cheered over the phone. 

“Are you excited for me, or are you excited for the alcohol I promised you?” Logan wondered. 

There was a grin in Laura’s voice when she spoke next. “Can’t it be both?”

They scheduled their Montreal trip for a Friday at the beginning of July, and Logan and Wade picked up the rental that he had left the merc in charge of reserving. When the Hertz employee showed them to their sleek new Honda Odyssey, Logan couldn’t help the chuckle that rumbled from his chest. 

“Really, Wade?”

“What, like I was going to rent a Kia Carnival? A Chrysler Voyager? A Toyota Sienna? Absolutely not.” Wade slapped a “Coexist” magnet on the bumper and climbed into the passenger seat. 

Logan happily took the driver’s seat, thrown back to a time over three years ago when he would have rather been anywhere else. Back to a time when he couldn’t see a future for himself. Now he had more than he could have ever imagined. And damn, there were those tears again. Had that memory really triggered them? What the hell? Logan blinked them away, but not before Wade noticed them. 

“Never would have pegged you for the sentimental type.” The merc leaned over, patting Logan’s leg. “Shall we rip each other’s guts out for old time’s sake?”

“Shut up,” the other mutant said, though there was no bite to his words. “And buckle in. Laura’s waiting.”

Laura burst into laughter when they rolled up to Xavier’s an hour or so later. “This one is much nicer than the one you two tore up in the Void.”

“And it gets much better gas mileage,” Wade piped up. Laura climbed in and they were off. 

The two of them talked for the whole of the drive. Logan could only get the gist of it; something about the TV show Bluey, which Wade had roped Laura into watching. He could not participate in any meaningful capacity, only nodding occasionally when Wade asked a blatantly rhetorical question.

“—and that’s why ‘The Dump’ is all about Bluey coming face-to-face with reincarnation. Right, Peanut?”

“Whatever you say, bub.”

“No no no but here’s the thing,” Laura said, leaning forward in the back seat. “Bandit driving the car is also a blatant metaphor for God. He claims to be an omniscient, omnipotent dad, but Bingo and Bluey realize he is not driving the car like the all-powerful father figure he claims to be, drawing into question his divine nature.”

His mate and his daughter rambled on, and once more the stinging in Logan’s eyes told him he was getting far too emotional about things that didn’t deserve it. What was there to idealize here? Two people he cared about getting along? Was that enough to reduce him to a blubbering mess? Weak. The Wolverine was getting weak. 

They arrived in Montreal nearly six hours later, and Logan parked them outside of a bar he had found during his meticulous research of the area. It had been a long time since he’d been this side of the border, and never in this universe. He’d had no idea what was nearby. Thankfully Google knew all, and directed him to a number of well-reviewed establishments in Montreal. The one he’d picked was a brewpub on the south side of town that served bar fare in addition to cocktails and beer on tap.

Neither Wade nor Logan had to flash ID, but Laura was all too eager to show the door attendant her passport. They were waved inside with no fuss. 

“Welcome to the world of true adulthood,” Wade said, throwing his arms wide. “What’re ya’ having?”

“Whiskey on the rocks,” Laura said with no hesitation. 

Wade rolled his eyes. “And if there was any shred of Jerry Springer-level doubt who your father was, it’s gone now.”

“Try something that’s not junk,” Logan advised.

“Like?”

“Jameson,” Wade said, earning him a glare from Logan. 

“No. Buffalo Trace, Old Forester 1910, Eagle Rare. Anything but Jim Beam and Jameson. And Jack Daniels, for that matter.”

Laura raised an eyebrow. “You drink Jack Daniels.”

“He also hates himself when he does,” said Wade.

“Jack Daniels is for when you want to get drunk,” Logan explained. “The ones I gave you are for when you want to enjoy it.”

With a shrug, Laura stepped up to the bar, offered her ID to the bartender, and ordered a Buffalo Trace on the rocks. Logan himself got a beer, and Wade promptly ordered an AMF, emphasis on the A. At a look from Logan, the merc said, “What? I’m not driving tonight.” And he took a large gulp of his blue drink.

Laura got her whiskey, Logan got his IPA, and the trio took a seat at one of the many tables scattered around the pub. 

“You’re supposed to drink it,” Logan said, nudging Laura with his shoulder when he caught her staring at the amber liquid in her glass. 

Something flashed across the twenty-year-old’s face, so quickly Logan couldn’t be sure it was there. For a fraction of a second, she’d almost looked…sad. He could only begin to guess what memory was going through her mind. The moment passed, however, and she took a sip of her drink. “It’s not bad.”

“Smooth, right?” Wade said. “Like a baby’s bottom.”

“Ew. No,” Laura answered with a laugh. “But you were right, Logan. This was a good choice. Cheers.” She lifted her glass, and Logan and Wade clinked their drinks with hers. “To not dying.”

The night progressed, and though Wade and Laura quickly finished their drinks, Logan found it hard to drink his IPA. It wasn’t that it tasted bad; it tasted like any other IPA he’d ever had. But his stomach flip-flopped in a weird way, and after only a few sips he realized that he wouldn’t be able to hold it down. 

“I’ll be right back,” he said, doing his best not to alarm Wade or Laura, and hastened to the bathrooms where he emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl. He wiped the back of his mouth with one hand, confused. Was this another side effect of the cytogenolone? He didn’t recall nausea and vomiting among those listed by the nurse, or on the brochures he’d read. Maybe it had just been bad beer. 

Those were the only two things it could have been. Logan’s healing factor prevented him from contracting viruses, and if it wasn’t a side effect of the drug it had to be just bad beer. Better to err on the side of caution and not finish it. The nausea was unusual, but not concerning. Logan rinsed his mouth out and returned to the table, where it seemed Wade and Laura had hardly noticed his absence. 

They were continuing their conversation about Bluey from earlier. That was all well and good, because Logan was really having a hard time convincing himself it was just the booze. Something sat like a rock in his stomach, but he couldn’t begin to guess at what it was. He supposed he should bring it up with the nurse at his next appointment in a couple weeks. Maybe this was a new side effect they had yet to document. It was a brand new drug, after all. And, as with all new drugs, the extent of the effects had not been thoroughly documented. 

And that could only be the case here. 

Chapter Text

While Logan had every intention of alerting the nurse to his nausea, he didn’t want to make a special appointment just to mention something that may or may not have been a side effect. He told himself the end of July wasn’t too long of a wait, and he told Wade nothing about the symptom. It was probably nothing. 

Then it happened again. And again. The second time it was over eggs; something about the rubbery texture was more than just off-putting. He almost didn’t make it to the bathroom before they made a reappearance. The third time he only smelled cooking broccoli and it nearly knocked him out. Wade, though he hadn’t said anything yet, had obviously noticed, watching Logan with an expression that the omega couldn’t place. 

When the fourth time hit, eight days after their trip to Montreal over a plate of pork ribs Wade had braised, the merc finally spoke up. “Have you suddenly acquired a palate that’s too good for my cooking?”

Logan had just returned from the bathroom, and he sighed. “Just a side effect of the cytogenolone, I think.”

“I don’t remember that being one of the common ones.”

“It’s a new drug. I’m sure they haven’t documented every possible side effect,” Logan said, waving his mate off and taking a seat at the breakfast bar. Wade huffed. 

“Well, try to make sure it doesn’t happen on Monday. Can’t have you blowing chunks on a job.”

Logan straightened in his seat. “A job? What is it?”

“Small-time mutant trafficking ring, I’m told. They have a hideout in Philly.”

“That’s a bit big for a Sister Margaret hit,” he said. 

“This came from a different contact of mine, not out of Sister Margaret’s. But I thought it might be nice to play the big heroes for once. Give kitty a chance to use his claws.” Wade grinned over at the omega. 

Logan couldn’t care less about “playing” hero, but he was eager to do some good besides threatening petty criminals and every-day stalkers out of their misdeeds. It had been a while since he’d had a chance to use his claws. The idea of tearing apart some mutant trafficking scum was appealing. 

“You’re so hot when you’re daydreaming about murder,” Wade sighed wistfully. Logan, feeling oddly giddy, laughed and stood. 

“You just knew I was getting bored intimidating lowlifes.”

“It’s easy money, but it’s not very exciting,” Wade agreed. “I’ve got transportation lined up for Monday. We leave bright and early.”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “Dopinder wasn’t available this weekend?”

“No. He and Gita are doing something stupidly romantic. A picnic in Central Park. It’s disgusting.”

“Hm.” The omega came up behind Wade and wrapped his arms around his mate’s waist. He nuzzled Wade’s neck. “Doesn’t sound so bad. Can you blame them?”

“Yes I can, and yes I will.”

“So,” Logan said, gently sucking on Wade’s earlobe. He felt the merc melt into him. “If I were to suggest it, you’d say no?”

Wade scoffed. “Since when are you a romantic?”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I sure as shit wouldn’t accept if we had a job to do instead.”

“But after?”

“My dear Peanut, are you planning something? This is very unusual.”

It was a well-known fact that Logan was the shittiest romantic on the planet. He loved Wade, but his love language was “violent sex” and nothing else. He blamed the cytogenolone mood swings for the sudden shift, but he couldn’t say it was necessarily a bad thing. “Maybe I just wanna show you off. Be seen with you.”

Wade pressed the back of his hand to Logan’s forehead. “Nope. Not in heat. What brought on the sudden need to sweep me off my feet?”

“Because I love you.”

Wade pulled back, his brow furrowing. “Okay, now I know something’s wrong, Mr. Represses-Every-Emotion-But-Anger.”

Logan laughed again, rather than rolling his eyes in annoyance. Giddy indeed. “So it’s settled? We go take care of some mutant traffickers and then I take you on a boat ride through Central Park.”

“I’m going to hold you to that. Once this mood passes, you’re still getting me that boat ride,” Wade said, tapping a finger against Logan’s chest. 

“As you should.” Logan stepped back and frowned at his plate of braised ribs before pulling some saltines from the cupboard. He was hungry, but the thought of ribs still turned his already upset stomach. 

The weekend went, and Logan’s moods continued to shift wildly. He could jump from sad to sentimental to violently angry in the span of a few minutes, and it was starting to get on his nerves. 

“It’s an adjustment. We’ll just bring it up with the nurse at the next appointment,” Wade said, appearing completely unfazed when Logan angrily threw a coffee mug at the wall moments after confessing that he thought he was starting to feel better. “Channel it for the mutant traffickers.”

When Monday rolled around, they suited up and slid into Dopinder’s taxi long before sunrise. Logan had modified his suit since his time in the Void, adjusting a panel here, reinforcing the fabric there, but it mostly remained the same: yellow. A constant reminder of his old team from the Worst Universe. 

Wade took the passenger seat in Dopinder’s taxi, leaving Logan to fold himself into the small back seat with his knees pressed uncomfortably to his chest. The drive, though relatively short, was unpleasant due to this fact. 

Initially, Dopinder attempted to persuade Wade to allow him to come along for the mission. The merc was having none of it. 

“Look, we all have our strengths. You’re great at driving me to hits, and your Uber rating is perfection. You aren’t so great with the whole ‘facing bad guys with guns and powers.’ Juggernaut almost flattened you last time ” Wade pointed out. 

“I did run over the headmaster though.”

“Who was not a mutant. Just a very bad man with an easily squishable skull.”

“I took out my cousin in the fight for Gita’s hand.”

“Also not a mutant. Come back with laser eyes or adamantium toenails and then we’ll talk,” Wade said, leaving no room for further argument from Dopinder. 

They arrived a few blocks from the target warehouse around 4 in the morning. Logan extricated himself from the backseat and tucked a Benjamin into the pocket behind Dopinder’s seat while Wade paid with a “firm handshake.” After assuring the duo he would return when they called, the taxi driver pulled away from the curb and disappeared into the Philadelphia morning. They began their walk to the warehouse. 

“Ready to slaughter some scumbags?” Wade said, checking the clips on his pistols as they went. Logan took a deep breath as they approached, picking up on the sour smell of the traffickers within even through the concrete and steel walls.

“Born ready,” he growled, flexing his fingers at his sides. 

Wade bounced on the balls of his feet. They had arrived at the warehouse. “I’ll take the front entrance so you can attack them from behind. We’ll meet in the middle and finish them off.”

“Sound good.” Logan was already stalking around the outside of the warehouse, unable to help the feral grin that crossed his face. Wade’s contact had provided very limited information, but this was a hot spot for young mutants disappearing and high-level players in the mutant trafficking circles were known to frequent this area. Who could say what they would find inside? The key to this mission would be stealth and misdirection, considering the potential for innocents in the crossfire—Wade would draw their fire, while Logan took everyone out from behind. It wasn’t Logan’s favorite strategy, but he could do it well enough when the situation called for it. 

He slid behind a dumpster that he knew partially covered the back entrance, tried the handle to said entrance, and shoved the door open when it stuck. He paused and waited for responding gunfire, but all he heard were the pops of semi-automatics at the front of the building. Nothing nearby. Wade was already doing his job. Logan slipped inside, taking in the warehouse’s interior. 

It was a large open space, with cavernous ceilings and walkways that crisscrossed above. A gaggle of adolescents, the oldest seeming no more than thirteen years old, huddled in a corner, all outfitted with identical neck pieces that Logan recognized as suppression collars. His blood boiled. 

In the years following the massacre at the X Mansion and Logan’s subsequent rampage, suppression collars had become the norm for young mutants in the Worst Universe. They weren’t taught to control their powers, but to avoid them. And if they couldn’t conform to human norms, then they were forced to. These collars, though in a completely different universe, served as a reminder of how he’d fucked up and who had paid the price. 

Wade was doing his part from the front entrance, returning fire when necessary, but mostly providing a moving target that proved hard to hit. Logan made the split-second decision to free the kids first and get them to safety before aiding his mate. Hugging the wall, he unsheathed his claws, drawing on the pain as they slid out from between his knuckles to fuel his rage. There were two men with Glocks guarding the kids, and Logan snuck up and slit the throat of the first one. The man dropped like a sack of rocks, his weapon skittering away. His buddy turned to face Logan, but before he could fire off a shot the mutant was slashing upwards with his right set. He sliced off the thumb and forefinger of the trafficker’s dominant hand before burying his left set in his abdomen. 

“You’re…you’re the Wolverine,” one of the kids said when Logan turned to usher them out. It was a boy, the youngest of the bunch, watching him with wide eyes. 

“One of them, yeah,” Logan answered. “Head out the back door and wait for us. We’ll get you to safety.”

The eight or so kids hastened to the door where Logan had entered. With them out of the picture, Logan and Wade were free to decimate the traffickers left within. There were only six left by the time Logan joined the fight, and he and his mate made quick work of them. In no time they were the only two left standing in the warehouse. 

“The kids are out back,” Logan told Wade, who was wiping drops of blood off of his pistol. Once finished, he tucked the weapon back in its holster on his hip.

“How many little angels are there?”

“I counted eight.”

“Well,” Wade threw his arm around Logan and the two walked towards the back entrance. “That’s eight fewer kids being shipped around. But you might want to put those away; don’t want to accidentally dismember someone.” Wade motioned to Logan’s claws. The omega rolled his eyes but sheathed his claws, suppressing a wince as they retracted. But then something odd happened—the stinging pain didn’t go away. It stayed , smarting beneath his gloves. Logan frowned and filed that away for later. 

The kids rushed Wade and Logan when they exited the building, all asking questions. 

“How did you find us?” 

“What do we do now?” 

“Can I go home?”

Wade held up his hands. “Everyone calm down. Yes, it’s true, you’re safe. You’re welcome.”

“We should call the X-Men,” Logan said in a low voice. “They are better equipped to get these kids to safety.”

Wade shot finger guns at him. “I like the way you think. I think Dopinder would need a bigger taxi to get all these kids home. You go make the call.”

With a nod, Logan stepped away and pulled off his gloves to ring Xavier’s. It was then he noticed the fresh blood still seeping from the wounds on his hands. Instantly he was alarmed, the one thought in his mind that his healing factor had indeed given up. He could only stare at his hand for a beat, wondering what would have happened if a stray bullet had hit him inside. Logan was used to being invincible, and so he was reckless. If his healing factor was gone…he could have died. 

Swallowing the horror for a second, Logan dialed the school and left a message with Piotr regarding the kids, who assured him that a team would be on their way to assist shortly. When he hung up, he made note of the wounds again. Still bleeding, but starting to clot now. Still very much there . 

“A team is being dispatched,” Logan said distantly. 

“Great!” Wade clapped his hands together. “Though I was all ready to take on the role of Miss Frizzle and cart these kids to New York on a school bus.” Wade pulled his mask off and frowned at Logan. “What’s wrong with you?”

He couldn’t worry Wade with this issue right now. There would be time to discuss it when they got back home. With a shake of his head, Logan pulled his gloves back on. “It’s nothing. I’ll tell you later. Let’s work on getting those collars off the kids.”

It took the X-Men just under two hours to reach the warehouse. It turned out to be Piotr and Ellie who came, and Logan drifted away to let Dopinder know they were ready for pick up. Really, he was not up for interaction at the moment. Thoughts were swirling in his mind, like “Am I dying?” and “How long do I have?”  

There was another potential explanation, another reason his healing factor might have shorted out. Such an instance would have been temporary, but it was also impossible. Logan pushed that thought aside. By the time Dopinder rolled up, the young mutants they had rescued were well on their way to getting on with their lives. It was a job well done. 

Yet Logan felt anything but okay. 

“What was that about?” Wade asked from behind the bathroom door. “At the warehouse?”

Logan knew it was coming. They were back at the apartment, stripping out of their suits with plans to order Chinese takeout and do nothing the rest of the day. He knew he couldn’t hide the wounds from his claws forever, and now was as good a time as any to let Wade in. He just had to do it in a way that wouldn’t alarm the merc, despite he himself being alarmed. 

“Something happened back there.” Well done, Logan. That won’t put him on edge. Wade opened the bathroom door, his top half naked and his bottom half still clad in red and black. He did indeed look concerned. 

“Like what?” No joke. Yes, the merc was worried. 

Logan peeled off his gloves, still sticky with blood, and held up his right hand to show the wounds from his claws. Wade was across the room in an instant, eyes wide. 

“What the hell?” He took Logan’s hand in his, gingerly inspecting the marks.

“I’m really glad I didn’t catch a bullet today.”

“What does it mean, though? Is your healing factor gone? Wasn’t the cytogeno-whatever-the-fuck supposed to keep this from happening?” There was a slightly frantic note to Wade’s words. 

Logan pulled his hand back. “I thought so, too. I’m going to make an appointment with Alchemax.”

“That drug was supposed to regrow organs. It was supposed to save your life. If it kills you, I’m…I’ll sue them. And then I’ll kill them.” Wade’s voice was shaky, but something he said stopped Logan in his tracks. 

Regrow organs. Was it possible…?

“Don’t kill anyone just yet. I’m still alive.”

Wade huffed. “For now. You could be a dead man walking for all we know.”

“Wade.” Logan put his sore hands on his mate’s shoulders. “We’ll figure this out. There’s going to be a reason for this, and we’ll find it and fix it.” Maybe sooner than we think. “I’m going to the store for something to bandage this shit up. Just take some deep breaths, and we’ll work through this.”

“How are you so fucking calm right now?” Wade gently pushed Logan’s hands away. “You could be dying.”

Because I think I know what it means. “Because it might be as simple as tweaking the drug. There’s no reason to panic yet. In the meantime, I’ll be careful, and we’ll see how soon Alchemax can get us in.”

“Right, right.” Wade ran a hand over his head and took a steadying breath. “I should go with you, just to make sure you don’t. Y’know. Catch a massive case of the deads.”

“No,” Logan said, almost too quickly. You can’t come with me on this. “The bodega is just down the street. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Fine. But I swear if you get killed…” Wade didn’t finish that statement. Logan wanted to point out that he knew a lot of people who could be killed and he wasn’t worried about them, but thought better of it. It wouldn’t get him closer to what he needed now. Logan leaned in and kissed Wade’s lips. 

“I’ll be fine. Give me fifteen minutes to get back here before you call in the cavalry.”

Wade waved him off, still brooding, and Logan made his exit before the merc could change his mind. He left the apartment and jogged down the steps to the street, turning left towards the store with a list of things he needed: gauze, antiseptic, medical tape. 

A pregnancy test. 

A bell over the door rang as Logan entered the shop. He quickly found the supplies he needed and grabbed one of each, with the exception of the pregnancy test. He grabbed four of those. 

The young woman working the counter rang up the items, but paused over the tests. She looked up at him with a sympathetic smile. “I hope she gets the result she wants.”

Logan swallowed. “Uh, thanks.” He quickly paid and pocketed everything he’d bought. However, rather than turning right out of the bodega to go home, he crossed the street to the subway station and ducked into the restrooms there. He had to know before he sprung this on Wade. 

After taking the test, Logan had to wait three minutes for it to process. The three minutes were agonizing, mostly because he had no idea what result he wanted. A positive? On the one hand, it would easily explain away his lack of healing factor. Kevin had told him such mutations went away temporarily with pregnancy all those months ago. On the other hand…shit. Wade had told him that Earth-10005 was incapable of providing prenatal care to male omegas. And if it was negative? Well, then Logan was just dying. But what was worse? A risky pregnancy, or straight-up death?

A pinging on Logan’s phone told him the three minutes were up. He silenced the alarm and took a deep breath, worried to look at the testing window. He had a brief moment of “How ridiculous is this?” It was known he couldn’t have kids. Kevin would have made sure to knock him up if he could. And drugs couldn’t regrow organs. There was simply no way he could be pregnant. But when Logan looked down, he saw the pale blue cross on the test and his blood ran cold. 

It was positive. 

Chapter Text

Logan stood in the bathroom stall, staring at the stick in his hand, mind short circuiting. How. How? How?! It didn’t make sense. He had lived almost 200 years without the necessary organs to grow life. How could a few doses of one drug grow them back? Other pieces started to fall into place for him. The premature heat, the nausea, the mood swings…fuck. Fucking fuck. Time was passing and he still couldn’t think past the test he was holding. Logan had promised Wade he would be back in fifteen minutes, but that was presupposing the test would be negative. He still had three more to take, and he wasn’t going back until he knew this wasn’t a faulty test.

After shooting off a quick text to let his mate know he was fine and that he was just taking longer than he anticipated, Logan proceeded to take the second test. The third. The fourth. Each one came back with the small blue cross. It was possible that the pregnancy tests in this world couldn’t accurately pick up on omega hormones, wasn’t it? Maybe they were all false positives. Maybe this meant nothing. If that was the case, though, there was only way to get answers, and Logan was loathe to return to the Worst Universe just to get a pregnancy test. 

He had stalled long enough. He needed to talk this out with Wade. With another curse, Logan shoved all four tests into his pocket and hurried back to their apartment. Wade was unhappy, to say the least. 

“Did you really think that fuck-all text of ‘Just taking longer than I thought’ would have me thinking you hadn’t been chest fucked by a tree?”

“It’s New York. Point me to a tree nearby that could do that,” Logan muttered, throwing the first aid supplies on the counter. 

“And you didn’t even fix your hands? What the hell were you doing?” 

Logan’s hand hesitated by his other pocket, before he sighed and dropped the four pregnancy tests on the counter. “Testing a hypothesis.”

Wade arched a hairless brow but approached. He picked up one of the sticks, not seeming to fully understand what it was. “Covid tests? Peanut, you have the ‘rona? That’s still bad.”

“They aren’t Covid tests.”

Wade stared at them. “You’re gonna have to help me out here. What else could they be?”

Logan ground his teeth. His mate was being purposefully obtuse, it felt like, but at the same time, could he blame Wade? The events of two years ago had happened in part because Logan could not have kids. If that was a fact, then in Wade’s mind they couldn’t possibly have been the positive pregnancy tests they were. 

“Something happened, Wade,” Logan said quietly. 

Wade blinked, fully taking in the tests for the first time. His eyes widened. “You said it wasn’t possible.”

“It shouldn’t be. But you heard the nurse. Cytogenolone was supposed to regrow organs. What if it did? What if…” Logan trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. Wade was silent for a beat. When he finally spoke, there was heat to his words. 

“What kind of convenient storytelling is this?! A drug that magically regrows organs? And I suppose this explains your healing factor blinking out, too?”

“I think so, yes.”

“And then the fact that my Michelin-star cooking turns your stomach, the fact that you swing from angry kitty to puppy dog at the drop of a hat…”

“It explains everything.”

“Well that’s just peachy. We’ve fallen victim to bullshit comic book science. So what do we do? I told you my world was utterly incapable of handling you pregnant. That’s still true.”

Logan hated what he was about to say, but he forced the words past his lips anyway. “We go to my timeline. For confirmation, at the very least. We can figure everything out once we know this isn’t just a fluke.”

Wade tapped the test he was holding against his palm before taking a deep breath. “Your timeline. Right. Okay.”

Logan had not been back to the Worst Universe since Wade had abruptly dragged him from it all those years ago. He’d forgotten how vibrantly it smelled—the cloying sweetness of fellow omegas, the rich, full-bodied smell of the alphas, the varying scents of the betas. There wasn’t much he missed from here, considering how violently he was hated, but the smells went beyond the stink of humanity. And he had, truly, missed them. 

But reminders of his past sins were hard to miss. Anti-mutant propaganda was all over the place, billboards and posters and graffiti on the subway. Wade seemed oblivious to it, but it was all Logan could see. His failures on blast for everyone to know. Reminders everywhere of the teammates he’d let down. God, he hated it here. Charles would be so disheartened to see what this world had become. Perhaps it was a good thing he was dead in this timeline; he didn’t have to witness the backslide in progress that Logan had caused. 

The OB where they had booked an appointment had a clinic in Midtown. It wasn’t more than a week later he and Wade were standing outside of the first-floor medical office, getting drenched in an unseasonable downpour. Wade had tried to coax him inside a number of times already, but Logan couldn’t seem to find a way to force his feet to move. Eventually Wade had given up, and so they stood there, standing in the rain, waiting. 

“You don’t have your healing factor. You’re going to catch a cold. Maybe Covid, for real this time.”

Logan knew this. He knew he had to go inside. But, for some unfathomable reason, he was afraid. He hated to admit that, even to himself, but it was true. He had already reached one of two conclusions in the subway bathroom: he was either pregnant or dying. And neither option was appealing. True, anyone could argue that pregnancy was leagues better than actively expiring, and something could be done about it if it wasn’t wanted. Still, Logan was afraid. 

And part of that was because he wasn’t sure if he wanted a pregnancy or not. 

“We’re going to miss our appointment, Peanut,” Wade said. “And, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you want to be here longer than you have to be.”

This was true. The sooner they left this terrible timeline behind, the better. Logan set his jaw. Without a word, he finally found the strength to move his feet, and they carried him through the front door. 

There were three other omegas (two men and a woman) and a female beta in the waiting room with their mates. Logan and Wade didn’t stand out save for the fact that they were utterly soaked and dripping rainwater on the carpet. 

After checking in with the beta receptionist at the front desk, Logan was once more given a thick stack of check-in paperwork to complete that reminded him of Alchemax, and he said as much.

“This is what all doctor’s offices do," Wade said with a wave of his hand. "They all ask the same questions, too. When was the last time you voluntarily saw a real doctor before Alchemax?”

Logan thought back. “1835,” he deadpanned.

Wade cleared his throat. “Right right right. Guess things have changed since then.”

Once Logan had filled out and returned the paperwork, he took a seat on Wade’s left. The waiting room was small, meaning he was also sitting by one of the other omegas—the woman. 

“Which one of you is expecting?” she asked them politely, smiling like it was the most natural thing in the world. Which, Logan had to remind himself, to others, it was. He was the outlier in this scenario. 

“Not sure if we are yet,” Logan answered.

The omega, appearing to be in her second trimester, laughed. “Well, who would it be?”

Wade leaned over, putting an arm around Logan’s shoulders. “Guess.”

The woman tilted her head at the merc. “You don’t smell like an omega, but you also don’t smell like an alpha. Whatever scent suppressant you’re using is working well.”

“Right. Yup. Scent suppressant. That’s exactly what it is.”

“You, on the other hand,” the woman continued, turning her smile to Logan. “Smell anxious.”

Logan suppressed a wince. He missed being the only one with a keen sense of smell. 

“The first one is always nerve wracking,” she said. “My brother has three, though, and he told me pregnancy isn’t so bad. And so far it hasn’t been. You’re going to be fine.”

“That’s…debatable,” he answered. 

“Oh, nonsense. Pretty soon you’ll be holding your bundle of joy and it will all be worth it. You might even be willing to do it all over again!”

“Logan?” a nurse appeared at the front desk.

“Oh thank christ,” Wade said under his breath, earning a smirk from Logan. The two of them stood and followed the nurse, whose name badge identified her as Penelope Warden. 

“You’re just here for a serum pregnancy test, is that all?” she said as she led them back to the room with a bed and two chairs instead of one. 

“Don’t trust the damn sticks,” Logan said, to which Penelope nodded.

“I don’t blame you there.”

She drew his blood, quick and almost painless (considering the wound did not heal immediately as he was used to) and flitted out of the room with a promise that the doctor, Dr. Clark, would be there to discuss the results soon. 

“So,” Wade said once she’d gone. “Something that’s been bugging me. You said you knew your healing factor would piss off during pregnancy. How did you know that?”

“Kevin,” Logan said simply, and Wade stared.

“What?”

“He knew a lot about mutant omega biology. Not really sure how; I think his mother was some sort of researcher on the subject. During one of his monologues he dropped that fact. Didn’t mean anything to me at the time, but it came back to me after the warehouse.”

“Do you know why?”

“I’m sure he told me. Bastard loved to hear his own voice. But I’m not really trying to remember much of what he put me through.”

“So fair.”

Logan looked at the wall across from where he sat on the medical bed. “Doesn’t stop my mind from bringing him back, though. I can’t help but think, if I’d tried the cytogenolone sooner, how different the outcome of that whole situation might have been.”

Wade, who had been draped across both chairs, shifted until he was sitting on the edge of the one closest to Logan. “It doesn’t matter how it might have played out. Things happened the way they did and Kevin is rotting in the Void like a jack-o-lantern four weeks after Halloween. Where he belongs.”

That was true. Before Logan could answer, a knock came at the door and a woman in a white coat who could only have been Dr. Clark entered carrying a clipboard. She was smiling, however faintly. Everyone here was smiling. Everyone was too happy here, and it rubbed him the wrong way. Logan was still confused on whether or not he should also be happy. 

“Your results came back rather quickly,” Dr. Clark said after introductions were made. “Congratulations. You are pregnant. In this instance, those store bought tests were right.”

And there it was. Absolute, undeniable proof that the cytogenolone had done the impossible. Logan glanced at Wade, who was watching him. Neither of them made any outward reaction, which the omega counted as odd. Hadn’t Wade always wanted kids? Shouldn’t he have been ecstatic about this turn of events? His brow furrowed. 

“Okay. So what’s next?” Logan finally asked.

“Well,” Dr. Clark flipped through the pages on her clipboard. “I see you are a mutant.” Her tone took on a clipped quality when she spoke, which didn’t surprise Logan. Not only was he a mutant, he was the mutant who had turned public opinion against them. While Dr. Clark seemed focused on the issue at hand, there was obviously a bias lurking just beneath the surface. Logan had to give her credit for sticking to her medical school oaths so thoroughly. He wondered if any other doctor would have thrown him out of the clinic upon realizing who he was. 

“Not many expressers of the X gene are omegas, so what we can expect is rather limited, but we do know some mutations are affected by pregnancy. The body shuts down specific biological processes for the protection of the fetus. In your case, I’d expect that your healing factor has temporarily gone away. Is that correct?”

“Yeah.”

Dr. Clark nodded curtly. “As I said, research is limited, but it’s hypothesized that the healing factor would recognize the fetus as a foreign body and try to expel it.”

A thought came to Logan then, one he hadn’t truly considered until this moment. If his healing factor was gone, the only thing standing between him and a slow death by adamantium poisoning was the cytogenolone, and who knew if that would be enough. This pregnancy might kill him anyway. In that case, the only logical course of action would be aborting it to allow his healing factor to return. 

Wade, clearly, had reached the same conclusion, because his expression soured and he asked, “How long after ending the pregnancy would it take for his healing factor to come back?”

Dr. Clark folded her hands over the clipboard in her lap. “It could take days, it could take months. There’s no way of knowing.”

So Logan could be fucked either way. Continue with the pregnancy and possibly die, or terminate and still maybe die waiting for his healing factor to return. It felt surreal. He’d taken the cytogenolone to keep him alive for Laura and Wade. And here the drug may have inadvertently signed his death certificate anyway.

“Can my mate and I have the room to talk?” he heard himself say. 

Dr. Clark nodded. “Of course. I’ll give you two some time.” She left the room and closed the door tightly behind her. Once she was gone, Logan turned to Wade to see that merc looked stricken. 

“So uh. Not great news,” Wade said. 

“No.” Logan felt detached, as though watching the scene from above the room.

“So what do you want to do?”

The omega frowned. “Isn’t there only one option? We…I…should probably terminate.”

“Sound logic,” Wade said. His tone was inflectionless, revealing none of his emotions.

“But even if I do, my healing factor might not return in time.”

“There is that.”

“So it doesn’t matter what we do.”

“It would seem so.”

Logan glared. “You’re being helpful.”

Wade was silent for a beat before he stood and came to sit beside Logan on the bed. “Look, Honey Badger, it’s not my call. This one’s all you—your life on the line, your dramatic sacrifice moment. Maybe Madonna starts playing. Or maybe not. Maybe the cyto-fucking-whatever does its job and there’s nothing to worry about. We have no idea.” 

“It should be an easy decision.”

“Should it?” Wade shrugged. 

“You always wanted kids. You should want this.”

“Ah, Peanut.” Wade took Logan’s hand. “I have a step-daughter in Laura, and I have you. Maybe I wanted it once upon a time, but this all the family I need now.”

“So I should terminate.”

“If you want.”

Logan growled. “That’s just it! I don’t know what I want. This was supposed to be impossible. I never planned for this. I never—” I never let myself want this because I knew I couldn’t have it. The fucking cursed pregnancy hormones hit at that moment, and he was tearing up. God, he wanted to unsheathe his claws and hurt something. He shouldn’t have had to make this decision.

But he did. And if he really thought about it, he knew what he wanted. 

He wanted this baby. It was selfish, for sure. Wade just wanted him alive. And Laura…fuck, he couldn’t die on her. But if the odds of him dying were the same whether he terminated or not, if there was no guarantee his healing factor would return in time, what was wrong with choosing to keep it? 

“Let’s say I wanted to have the baby. What then?”

Wade took a breath through his nose. Logan searched the merc’s face for a sign of disappointment, anger, sadness, some emotion. He saw nothing. “You don’t have to make the decision right now.”

No, but he would have to make it soon. Logan couldn’t put it off forever. “I want it.”

Wade offered Logan a small, if hesitant, smile. “Of course you do. And if this is the hill you’ve chosen to maybe-die-on-maybe-not, I’m with you.”

Dr. Clark returned only a few minutes later. “Have we reached a decision?”

“Yeah,” Logan said. Wade still didn’t have much emotion on his face. He was predictably shoving it all down, and though it pissed a very hormonal Logan off, he couldn’t blame him. Wade would stick by him, but he wasn’t excited. The threat of Logan’s death still hung heavy in the air. However, if Logan was going to go through with this, he needed more than resigned acceptance. He needed Wade all-in. “Can we see the baby?”

Dr. Clark referred to the paperwork Logan had filled out on her clipboard. “Based on your last heat, you should be well enough along that that an ultrasound won’t be an issue. Please follow me.” She motioned Wade and Logan out of the room, down the hall to a larger space with imaging equipment staggered around it. All throughout the procedure, Logan kept looking at Wade, waiting for some sort of reaction. The merc stubbornly remained impassive, but even Logan had to admit it was hard to connect the small black and white blob on the monitor to a baby. It wasn’t until Dr. Clark asked if they wanted to hear the baby’s heartbeat that Wade really reacted. 

“You can do that?” he asked. 

Dr. Clark’s smile was tight, but it was the warmest expression she’d had since initially meeting them. “Yes, of course. Here.” And she flipped a switch. 

A sound that Logan could only describe as galloping horses came from the machine, and Wade’s face finally changed. The hard lines melted off of it, replaced by something akin to awe. 

“That’s our baby?” he asked. Dr. Clark nodded. 

A faint smile tugged at the corners of Wade’s lips and he looked at Logan with much more than cautious consideration. “Never thought I’d hear that sound.”

“So you’re okay with keeping it?” Logan asked. 

A shadow crossed Wade’s face, as though he was grappling with some internal emotion. Fear of losing Logan? Uncertainty about the future? But, after a few beats of the baby’s heart, the shadow passed, replaced by a serene smile. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

Chapter Text

With the decision made to keep the baby, their focus turned to logistics. Logan didn’t want to return to Dr. Clark—or, really, anyone in his universe. He felt unwelcome at best there, endangered at worst. And, even though it would make sense to seek out prenatal care in the Worst Universe where omegas got pregnant regardless of primary sex, without Logan’s healing factor, it was deemed too risky to return. Logan had already told Wade how he’d been hunted immediately after the events at his X Mansion. The propaganda he’d seen had cemented his desire to never return; he was not about to invite a rematch by going back. 

That left finding a doctor who could see Logan on Earth-10005.

“You can pass it off as a product of your X gene,” Wade suggested over dinner that night. They’d settled for ramen (Logan took his without the flavor packet, as his stomach was still not ironclad as it had been before the pregnancy) and were currently sitting on the couch with Wade hunkered over a battered old Chromebook. 

“Mutants aren’t really liked here either,” Logan said. “And neither are people who aren’t considered normal by this universe’s standard.”

“So we just need to find a doctor who doesn’t care about mutants or the gender binary.” Wade said it as though it was the easiest thing in the world. 

“That’s going to be a challenge.”

“Is it?” Wade sounded surprised. “What about Beast?”

Logan bristled. “Do we have to involve the X-Men?”

“For fuck’s sake,” the merc sighed. “Yes, we have to involve the X-Men. At the very least the real McCoy. Unless you know of any other explicitly mutant-friendly doctors in my universe?”

“Hank doesn’t even have an MD. He has PhDs in genetics and biophysics.”

“And he’s a fucking genius! Look.” Wade took Logan’s face in his hands. “You want this baby. You are going to have to get over letting people know that you’re pregnant. We can’t just pop up with a baby out of nowhere. People will think we stole it. Speaking of which…you need to tell Laura.”

Logan had been expecting that. He wanted to vehemently refuse, but Wade had a point, and with his healing factor gone, he owed Laura an explanation. 

“You also need to find out what side effects cytogenolone can have on the unborn,” Wade insisted. “Which means telling the Alchemax nurse, whose name escapes me, probably because the author forgot to name him.”

Logan ignored the last part of Wade’s statement. “They did want mutants in their trial. It shouldn’t be too unheard of if I forgot to mention one particular ability.”

“Yes! Good Peanut. You’re coming around.”

The first thing on their list was to tell Alchemax. Conveniently, Logan’s fourth cytogenolone appointment was only a couple days after the visit with Dr. Clark. When they arrived Logan finally asked what the nurse’s name was. 

“John Weir,” he said helpfully, seemingly not offended that they hadn’t retained his name. “You said you had some questions regarding side effects?”

“Nurse John. Right.” Logan committed the name to memory before working up the courage to ask the next question. “I—we—wanted to know what consequences the cytogenolone could have on a…a fetus.”

John looked confused. “Why?”

“X gene mutations come in many different flavors,” Wade said from the cuck chair by way of explanation. John looked between both of them. 

“Are you…are you saying you’re pregnant?”

Logan cleared his throat. “Yes.”

John, to his credit, seemed to take the news in stride. “That’s unexpected, but we have had pregnant…individuals…in our trials before. There have so far been no adverse effects on the unborn. No birth defects or miscarriages. However, it’s completely understandable if you wish to drop out of the study. There is no harm in that.”

“I want to stay in the study,” Logan affirmed. Not that he had a choice. If he stopped taking the cytogenolone altogether, given the high numbers he’d started with, he wouldn’t last long without his healing factor. 

John scribbled something on his clipboard. “We’ll just make a note of this. We will take some blood from you today and see if there have been any changes in your blood work since, um. Conception.”

When the tests came back as hovering around the 10 micrograms per deciliter mark, Logan sighed in relief. There was less risk than he’d initially thought. The cytogenolone seemed to be doing more than they’d anticipated. They would still be monitoring it closely, but for now they were assuming they were in the clear. Wade looked relieved beyond words.

They told Hank McCoy next. 

“Peanut and Wade,” the blue-furred mutant greeted them in Xavier’s infirmary. “I must say I was confused when I got your request to meet.”

Logan had long since stopped caring that the X-Men of this universe called him Peanut. In some ways, it helped him stay detached. If he heard Charles or Scott call him by his true name even once he might have crawled into a bottle of Jack and never come out. Sure, it wasn’t the most dignified of nicknames, but at least it distinguished him from Earth-10005’s native Logan. 

“We’re just as shocked as you that the request was granted,” Wade said. “Never thought this author would give us more X-men than Colossus in a fic.”

“Ignore him,” Logan said when Hank raised a furry brow. “I had a favor to ask.” And with only minimal hesitation he launched into an explanation of what they needed, only offering details surrounding the pregnancy that he deemed necessary. He left out much of the biology of omegas, sticking instead to the story that this was simply another mutation. Hank listened quietly until Logan was finished. 

“Pregnant. That’s a new one,” Hank said with no judgement in his tone. 

Logan shifted on his feet and crossed his arms, uncomfortable. “Can you help?”

“I can certainly try. The lack of a healing factor complicates things. It’s good to hear you are taking cytogenolone—I have heard of the drug, and it sounds incredibly promising. If you can get me copies of your lab results each time you have an injection, it will prevent unnecessary lab draws on my part.”

“Does he need to do anything differently?” Wade asked. Hank adjusted his glasses on his nose and walked over to his computer. 

“I can get you printouts on what foods to avoid and what vitamins are vital to take. Based on what you’ve told me, I’d estimate the due date to be close to the middle of February. Of course, there are a million variables we can’t account for so I also recommend regular checkups to make sure the baby is growing as planned.”

“And I trust you will handle this with the utmost discretion,” Logan said. Hank smiled. 

“But of course. Though it may become harder to hide as time goes on. I’d make peace with letting others know.”

Wade shot Logan a look, which Logan pointedly ignored. Last on the list was Laura, and Logan told Wade he’d rather speak to his daughter alone. 

“And you’ll tell her everything without me there to prompt you?” Wade said. 

“I’ll tell her what she needs to know.”

“Which is everything.”

Logan glared and emphasized, “ What she needs to know.”

“You are a willful Wolverine,” Wade said with a shake of his head, but let it go. 

Logan had offered to take Laura out for dinner, and he let her choose the place. She’d picked a brewpub in Salem, not far from Xavier’s, and they met two weeks after Logan’s first positive test. She beat him to the pub and smiled as he approached the table she’d snagged for them on this busy night. 

“I picked the most expensive restaurant in town since you said it was on you,” she joked. 

Logan took a seat. “Great. Thank you for that.” But he returned her smile.

“They also have really good beer on tap. Or so I’m told. I can’t drink in New York yet.”

Logan looked at the tap list above the bar and almost sighed. Perhaps the hardest thing to do would be abstaining from alcohol for nine months. The morning sickness made the thought of drink sound awful, but when it went away Logan knew he’d be pining for liquor straight from the bottle. But keeping the baby was his choice; he couldn’t feel too sorry for himself.

The waiter came and took their orders—a well-done burger for Logan, and a Southwest salad for Laura. She tilted her head when he ordered water instead of anything on tap. 

“You’re not drinking?”

And there it was. The perfect lead-in to the whole reason they were meeting in the first place. Logan tapped his finger on the tabletop, agitated. It shouldn’t be this hard to tell Laura what was going on. And, in his world, it wouldn’t be. It would have been normal. It would have been expected. Heats, mates, alphas, omegas, pregnancy . All of it common in the Worst Universe: covered in sex education classes and joked about on sitcoms and an integral part of the birds and the bees talk parents had with their children. 

But this was Earth-10005, where secondary sexes didn’t exist and men didn’t get pregnant. And Logan once again realized he was afraid. Damn hormones . He’d been silent too long, and Laura was watching him, waiting for an answer that was anything but easy. Finally, he said, “That’s part of the reason I wanted to talk to you.” 

Laura blinked in surprise. “Are you quitting alcohol?” 

“…For a bit.” 

Now she was confused. “Why?” 

“I’m not from this…world. This timeline, universe, whatever. Right?”

Laura was eyeing him suspiciously. “Yeah…”

“Things are different in each parallel universe. Different variants of different people...”

“I know how the multiverse works.”

“Okay. So things are even more different where I’m from.”

“Different how ?”

Logan was doing a piss-poor job at getting to the point. He might as well just rip the bandaid off. Maybe it was because he knew Wade would kill him if he came home unsuccessful. Maybe it was because Laura was the closest thing he had to a blood relative in any universe. But finally, he said, “I’m pregnant.”

Laura’s jaw fell open. That was more akin to the response he had been expecting. Nurse John and Hank were accustomed to medical oddities. Laura was barely an adult who had only started formal education in the last few years. Of course her response would be the most dismayed. 

“I’m sorry, what?” She wasn’t judgmental, he didn’t think. Just bewildered. Logan launched into the cliff notes version of what alphas and omegas were, all the while feeling like he wanted to be anywhere else. Laura’s shocked expression gradually grew more closed off, and he felt for the first time the very real fear that he might lose her. That knife cut deeper than anything. 

“So when you disappeared a few weeks ago, that was…”

“An unexpected heat.”

Laura nodded, processing that. “Is that why Kevin wanted you? He was an alpha?”

Logan couldn’t hide that he was surprised she’d made that connection. “Yes.”

“I can’t ask why you didn’t tell me, cuz I think I know why. But what changed? Why now?”

“The drug trial you wanted me to join had some unexpected side effects. And…” he took a deep breath, because he hadn’t reached the worst part. “And it’s a good thing it’s working like it should, because my healing factor is gone.”

Laura started in her chair. “It’s what? ”

“It will come back. But it will be after the…birth.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Now she was angry. “You’re okay with potentially dying over this?”

“I’m not going to die.”

“You don’t know that!” Laura was breathing hard. There was true fear in her eyes. And suddenly Logan hated himself for being so selfish. It wasn’t too late to terminate, but the thought made him feel ill. He wanted this baby still. But did he want it more than he wanted Laura in his life? Was he choosing one over the other? “This is stupid. You can’t—you shouldn’t—I don’t—Ugh!” 

She pushed her chair back from the table and stormed out of the restaurant. Logan grimaced when he heard the door close behind her. A few of the patrons at other tables gave him pitying looks. He doubted they’d heard anything substantial, but they had certainly seen how it all played out. 

Logan was terrible at talking, and even worse about sitting with uncomfortable emotions. He desperately needed the company of one Jack Daniels in that moment. What was he supposed to do now? Go after her? Give her space? Logan scrubbed a hand down his face, at a loss. How could he explain to Laura what this baby meant to him without it sounding like he was giving more consideration to it than he was to her?

“That’s what you’re doing, though, isn’t it?” he muttered under his breath. He was risking his life for one kid when he already had one who needed him. Sure, the risk was calculated, but the principle remained the same. 

Logan waited a few more minutes for Laura to return before resigning himself to the fact that she wasn’t coming back. No longer in the mood to eat, he dropped a wad of cash on the table for their dinners plus a tip, and without a backwards glance he was gone.

Chapter Text

“You’re home early,” Wade said when Logan got back to the apartment. He was currently lounging upside down on the couch, watching The Real Housewives of New York City. “How’d it go?”

“How the fuck do you think?” Logan growled back, slamming the door and stalking over to the kitchen. He angrily filled a glass of water and then stared at it, wishing it were full of something cheap and 150 proof. 

Wade sat up, looking confused. “She didn’t take it well?” 

“She thinks I’m choosing the baby over her.”

“Did she say that?”

“No. But she’s pissed that I would risk my life for it. What else am I supposed to think?”

“Now now Peanut, you can’t go putting words in people’s mouths. Did you try to explain it to her?”

“She stormed out.”

Wade deflated a bit. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Logan drained the glass in his hand and slammed it on the counter hard enough to shatter. A shard of glass jabbed into his palm and he cursed as blood dripped onto the countertop. “And maybe she has a point. I’m not used to being fucking breakable.”

Wade was by his side in an instant, holding the gauze and medical-grade tape that Logan had previously bought for his claw wounds. 

“She’ll come around,” he said with forced optimism as he cleaned and bandaged the cut. 

Logan closed his eyes and sighed. “Maybe she will. Maybe she won’t. Maybe I have to lose one kid to gain the other.”

“Shut the fuck up with that.” Wade pulled the gauze a bit too tight, and Logan hissed in pain. “Sorry. But no, you will fuck off with that talk. You need to give her time. You did drop a bombshell on her.”

“At your suggestion!”

“Because she needed to know. I didn’t say it would be easy . I said it needed to be done.” Wade taped the gauze in place. 

“I should have known better than to listen to the guy who gets his life advice from Stefan World.”

“It’s Steven Universe, and it has good life lessons. What would you rather do, just randomly show up with a newborn in nine months and not tell her how it got here?”

“I don’t see an issue with that.” Logan stubbornly crossed his arms.

Wade eyed him. “Yes you do. God, why am I being the mature one here? Why couldn’t the author write you with some sense?”

“I just…I don’t want to lose her.” Lord knows he’d lost everyone else in his life due to his selfishness. He wasn’t sure how to handle it if this pushed Laura away. 

“You won’t. She just needs to process the nuke you dropped.”

Logan wanted to believe that Wade was right, but in the moment it felt hopeless. He let his head drop to Wade’s shoulder. The merc wrapped his arms around Logan and pulled him close.

“You know what you need? A good old fashioned dicking down. That might cheer you up.”

“The answer to everything in life isn’t sex,” Logan mumbled into Wade’s shirt.

“No, that’s 42. But the answer to getting you in a better mood is a mind-altering boning.”

“It’s a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Because my healing factor is gone, for one.”

“Why Logi Bear, I can be gentle.”

“You are incapable of gentle.”

“I’ll have you know I can be a very tender lover. Did you forget that wonderful time in the backseat of a rented Hyundai Elantra?” To drive his point home, Wade gently kissed Logan’s temple and ran his hands slowly down the omega’s torso. Despite himself, Logan felt a simmering in his loins. He raised his head to look into Wade’s eyes.

“We still had to pay a cleaning fee on the Elantra.”

“Then I dial it back even more . Nothing but slow, sensual love making.”

“Fine,” Logan said softly. “Prove me wrong.”

“No couch sex. Or kitchen sex. Or even shower sex. Straight to the mattress,” Wade said, sliding his hand into Logan’s and tugging him towards the master bedroom. Logan followed, his expectations low, but Wade surprised him. He stopped at the foot of the bed and sat down on the mattress before pulling Logan into his lap. Logan straddled his mate’s legs and shivered when his semi-hard length brushed against the growing tent in Wade’s pants. The merc ran his hands through the omega’s hair, curling his hand into a fist and giving a slight tug. Electricity went straight to Logan’s groin. 

“You call that gentle?” Logan said even as he suppressed a moan. Wade’s answer was to pull the omega to him and press their mouths together, running his tongue along the edge of Logan’s bottom lip. There was no harshness to the kiss. 

The truth was, in the past when Logan went slow, it was because he was in charge of the pace. With Wade, it was the merc who set the rhythm, and being led by slow touches and soft fingers was almost an entirely new dynamic between them. Wade shifted his mouth to pepper kisses along Logan’s jawline, down his neck, stopping only to nuzzle at his throat. Logan’s hands knotted in his mate’s shirt, threatening to tear it off. 

“Ah, ah,” Wade chided softly. “Slow.” He removed his hands from Logan’s hair and ran them down his arms, pulling Logan’s fists away. Doing as he was told, Logan instead slipped his hands beneath the hem of Wade’s shirt, letting his hands slide below his waistband. The fire that burned between them was slow and hot, like flowing lava versus the bright inferno that they usually had. Logan wouldn’t have minded doing nothing but kissing, and almost forgot that Wade had promised sex until the merc guided him onto his back on the bed. 

Wade sat back and slowly pulled his shirt off, allowing Logan to admire his mate from below. The man’s scarred skin stretched over his muscled abdomen, showing off just how fit the merc was.

Mine , Logan thought. He could feel slick already coating the inside of his thighs, but without a heat to urge him on, he was able to enjoy the moment. Wade tossed his shirt aside and bent back down, pressing his lips to Logan’s jugular and sucking gently. 

“Do you think if I bit you this time, it would stay?” he asked. The thought sent Logan’s mind spinning, but he ultimately knew the answer. 

“You’re no alpha.”

“Still,” Wade answered. “Doesn’t mean I can’t try.” The bite was not hard, barely a pinch where Logan’s neck met his shoulder, but he couldn’t help but gasp with pleasure. 

“God, Wade—”

“Oh Peanut, I’m just getting started.” Wade’s hands slipped below Logan’s pants, finding his cock and running his thumb along the base of the shaft. Logan moaned again. “I love that you’re so hard for me.”

Mindful of the fact that this was Logan’s last intact pair of jeans, Wade helped him shimmy out of them and then tossed them aside. Then he kicked off his own pants and descended on Logan again, running his fingers up the omega’s thighs. Logan shivered under the merc’s touch, his groin aching, demanding to be touched. Wade delivered by pulling his right hand away and running it up and down his own length. 

“What do you need, Peanut?”

“I need you inside me. Yesterday.” 

Wade grinned and guided the head of his cock around Logan’s cunt before slowly sinking in. “And you’re wet for me, too. Just how I like it.”

They moved together, unhurried, bathed in the heat of the lava between them. Wade came first, emptying himself into Logan and tilting the omega over the edge. He buried his head in Wade’s chest and cried out wordlessly. It felt wrong to curse in the moment. When at last they fell back together on the mattress, the worries had all left Logan’s mind. 

Laura would come around. Everything would be fine. 

Logan lay against Wade, his head on his mate’s chest. The merc was drawing lazy circles on Logan’s back with his finger, and for a while neither spoke, simply basking in the presence of the other.

“Oh my god,” Wade finally said, a grin splitting his face. “You’re purring.”

Logan frowned and looked up at the merc. “No, I’m not.”

“Yes you are. Forget Wolverine; you should change your name to Kitty Cat.”

“Fuck off.”

“Don’t be like that.” Wade kissed the tip of Logan’s nose. “It’s cute. Is that an omega thing, or a you thing?”

“I’m not purring.”

“A ‘you’ thing, got it.”

“God, you’re insufferable,” Logan muttered, but he was too content to put much bite in his tone. 

“We haven’t thought about names for the baby. What about Cat, if it’s a girl? In honor of you purring?”

“How about we name it Dimwit in honor of you being a fucking moron?”

“Now you’re just being mean.”

“Saddling a kid with a name like ‘Cat’ is what’s mean.”

“Kitty Pryde would like a word.” If Logan had been purring before, he outright growled at that. Wade huffed. “Okay then, Mr. Contrarian. What’s a real name you’d like?”

Given that Logan was barely a month along, and had known about the baby for much less time, the topic of names had not crossed his mind. He thought for a moment. His immediate gut reaction was to pick a name that had no meaning, something he liked the sound of. But a deeper part of him figured that the baby he thought he’d never have deserved a legacy. 

“Anna Marie for a girl,” he said. “Or maybe just Marie.”

“And a boy?”

A lump formed in Logan’s throat. He really fucking hated these hormones. “Charles.”

“Not bad,” Wade said. “Ridiculously corny, but that seems to be your thing while pregnant.”

“What names would you pick?”

“I don’t think I get a say. You’re the one doing all the hard work by growing the thing.”

“Its got half your DNA. You get a say.”

“Well, in that case…maybe Althea for a girl,” Wade mused. “After Blind Al, the only decent mother figure in my life.” Logan was momentarily taken aback, surprised Wade hadn’t made a joke of the name.

“That’s nice—”

“And for a boy, we could one up Gwyneth Paltrow and call the baby Grapefruit. Or Durian!”

Logan spoke too soon. “Jesus christ .”

“Come to think of it, Grapefruit is more of a unisex name…”

“Stop while you’re ahead. Leave it at Althea.”

“Do you think we could call the baby Seeing Al? So we have Blind Al and Seeing Al?”

“Now I take it all back. You get no part in naming the kid.”

Wade pouted. “It was fun to imagine while it lasted.”

Their idle pillow talk slowly died off, until Wade was snoring softly into Logan’s hair. Logan himself was teetering on the edge of sleep, feeling much more at ease about the day. Everything with Laura would be fine, the pregnancy would go as planned, and Logan would get everything he never let himself dare to think he would ever have. 

Chapter Text

The Void was an ever-changing amalgamation of whatever worlds and objects and beings the TVA deemed in need of pruning. The only constant for years had been Cassandra Nova, and now she was gone, leaving a disorganized bunch of mutants and super beings behind. No single leader had risen, though many had tried. The large collaborative group of pruned beings now ran on their own, mostly, dodging Alioth and other threats the Void offered up. Large stretches of land devoid of food or water posed a hazard, as did a species of yellow bat-like creatures that looked appetizing but secreted a potent neurotoxin that killed anyone desperate enough to try eating them. Still other threats had been pruned themselves, monsters and fiends and beings that could devour entire worlds. It was every man for himself in the Void. 

This had made finding hosts a chore for Kevin MacTaggert. Everyone was so spread out that he spent the entire lifespan of a single host searching for his next, and sometimes he went days without a physical body. He couldn’t even begin to look for a way out when he was incorporeal half the time. That would not do. He had unfinished business outside of the Void. He couldn’t stay here. Not again.

And to escape, the alpha realized, he needed help. Someone who could do things for him while he was between hosts. A partnership of sorts. That was his first order of business: find an accomplice. 

There were many he looked at. Variants of the Avengers, the X-Men, S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra agents, all falling short in some manner or another, many either meeting rather gruesome deaths at the hands of their fellow scavengers in the Void or being consumed by Alioth. Those that lasted longer than a week wanted nothing to do with him, and many had the abilities to keep him at bay. 

In the end, his partner found him, approaching him in a decrepit service station during one of Kevin’s scavenging runs to find a new host. Kevin recognized the face of Dr. Henry McCoy, but in his memories the mutant was blue. This variant had charcoal grey fur and pale eyes, and wore a sinister smirk. 

“So you are the Proteus I have heard so much about,” the Dark Beast rumbled. Kevin, who currently wore the body of a young Charles Xavier that had stumbled into him at the right (or wrong) moment, straightened. 

“You’ve heard of me?”

“As much as one can hear anything in this gods-forsaken wasteland.” The Dark Beast towered over Kevin’s current form.

“I assume you have a reason for searching me out, then?”

The Dark Beast stroked his chin with a clawed hand. “You are something very rare in the Void, Mr. MacTaggert. Your true form is source of energy. And it just so happens that I am in need of energy.”

“For what?” Kevin asked, suspicious. 

The Dark Beast laughed. “Why else would anyone need energy? To get out of this purgatory.”

That sparked Kevin’s interest. “You have a way out of here?”

“Not yet. But that is where you come on. I have technology that needs powered. Are you willing to aid me?”

“Show me.”

And the Dark Beast did, leading Kevin to an abandoned helicarrier in a corn field, its aft section jutting upwards from the ground at a fifteen degree angle. 

“The technology is here,” he confirmed. “It just needs to be powered.”

“What’s in it for me?” Kevin asked. 

The Dark Beast looked surprised. “Is escaping not enough for you?”

Kevin ran a finger along the helicarrier’s hull, as though inspecting it for dust. “I can only interact with my surroundings when I am in a corporeal form. If you wish me to assist, we will have to solve the problem of my need for a host.”

The Dark Beast grinned, a feral expression that revealed his wicked-looking fangs. “I believe I have just the solution.”

And that was how it started, with the Dark Beast using stasis pods found within the helicarrier as a way to grow clones. They used the DNA of the Charles Xavier variant that Kevin currently wore, ensuring an endless supply of bodies for the alpha. It was slow going, at first. By the time Kevin had used the latent energy in his true form to power the stasis pods enough to grow a new clone, his current host was already in an advanced state of decay. It took him time to build up a back supply of clones before he could ever think about trying to power the helicarrier for other purposes. 

All throughout this time, Kevin found himself antsy to get back to the main timelines. He was an alpha, after all, and what was an alpha without an omega? At first, he thought, any omega would do. He missed their sweet scents and the way his omegas had cowered at his feet. But when the ruts came and went in the Void, Kevin found his mind drifting back to the omega he had never collared. 

Logan. 

The memory of their time in the tunnels beneath Vermont was enough to carry him through the ruts, but it was hardly satisfying. He left the rut irritable but determined to get back to Earth-10005 and finish what he’d been unable to his first time there. Sure, he could always go back to his own universe. And maybe he would eventually. But there was no fun in that, not now, not when he knew where to find a perfectly good omega to break already. 

The Dark Beast worked slowly, running simulations and making adjustments on the portal he was building. Too slowly for Kevin’s liking, but he didn’t dare criticize the massive mutant with no morals. Not if he wanted to keep access to the clones that had made living in the Void bearable. In the times when he was not needed, he would drift back to Cassandra Nova’s old base on the off-chance that scavengers had left something important behind. 

There was rarely anything more than old clothing and damaged weapons, but on one particular trip Kevin found something that he’d never noticed before. A flip phone, bulky and ancient, was tucked away in one of the nooks within the old lair. Kevin almost wrote it off as just more junk, but paused when he noticed that the device still had power. How long had it been there? How had its battery not been drained yet? Curious, Kevin picked it up and flipped it open. 

The display was cracked, but it still functioned. No text feature, as the device was too old, but Kevin recognized the software the phone was running. 

It was a TVA-issued operating system. The phone Kevin was holding had been jailbroken by the Time Variance Authority. And if it could communicate with the TVA outside of the Void, it could communicate anywhere in the multiverse. 

A shiver ran down Kevin’s spine, and a slow grin spread across his face. It might not have been a way out of the Void just yet, but it was a way to connect with people on the other side. And Kevin knew just who to connect to. He had unfinished business topside, and now he had a way to complete what he’d started without waiting for the Dark Beast to finish his portal. 

“Oh, Logan,” Kevin murmured, pocketing the cellphone. “Guess who’s coming back."

Chapter Text

Days passed with no word from Laura. This was deeply unusual; if they weren’t meeting up within a few days, she was at least texting Logan or Wade. This week, however, they got no texts, no calls, no Snaps. Just radio silence. 

Logan did his best not to get discouraged. The twenty-year-old needed space to process what she’d learned—of course she did. Her universe was vastly different from his own and she had been confronted with those differences for the first time. But the longer they went without so much as a peep from her, the more worried he became that this had driven a permanent wedge between them.

Wade, to his credit, was staying optimistic. “Here me out: we go apartment hunting. Me, you, and Tiny Peanut. If the baby goes in the guest room, poor Laura will be demoted to Couch Goblin when she comes over.”

Logan looked down his nose at his mate. “You want to find a three bedroom apartment in New York City? We can barely afford this two bedroom cracker box.”

Wade shrugged. “Sure, I’ll have to pick up more jobs at Sister Margaret’s School of Rock, but that’s not the end of the world. I’ll just consider it another delightful chapter in the ‘Guess I’m a Dad Now’ handbook.”

“I guess an extra job a week couldn’t hurt anything,” Logan said. “We can—”

“Woah, Peanut. We? You’re not coming along.”

Logan’s expression darkened. “Just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean I’m useless.”

“You’re also forgetting you have the regenerative capabilities of a decorative houseplant right now.”

“I can still—”

“Nope.”

“You were doing mercenary work before you got a healing factor.”

“Which means I know exactly how un-fun it is,” Wade said dismissively. “I have the mental scars and BetterHelp therapy bill to prove it. You haven’t had to worry about dying since the 1800’s. Your idea of strategy is ‘get stabbed until the other guy gives up.’ Which is the whole problem.”

Logan did not want to see Wade’s point, but the cut on his hand from the water glass he’d shattered a week ago twinged as a reminder that he was, actually, vulnerable without his healing factor. He growled in frustration. “Whatever.”

“Besides, I know the omega in you is dying to nest.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You brought five blankets into the bed last night. It’s the middle of summer.”

“I was cold.” 

“Our A/C is out.”

Grumbling, Logan picked up the cup of decaf coffee he’d been nursing at the breakfast bar and moved to the living room while his mate laughed in the kitchen. His phone sat silently in his pocket, and he found himself wishing it would buzz with some message from Laura. His wishes went unanswered. Salt in the wound.

Wade did decide to pick up a few extra jobs, and Logan found it in himself to not complain more than a little bit whenever the merc left. It wasn’t fair that his mate got to go out and have fun, but he reminded himself yet again that he had chosen to keep the pregnancy and any consequences were purely his own doing. One such job came just over ten days after the disastrous dinner with Laura. An overnight job, Wade said.

“It pays double the average rate, which is like getting hazard pay and guilt money. I just need to leave town tonight, do a little hack-n-slash, and I’ll be back in time for dinner tomorrow,” he assured Logan. The omega shrugged to hide his own displeasure at being left behind. 

“And I’ll be here.”

After Wade left around seven that night, Logan wondered around the apartment, his mind elsewhere. It wasn’t until the pile of blankets on the bed had grown to an absurd amount that he realized Wade had been right about the nesting. 

“Dammit,” he muttered, but flopped down in the nest anyway. There was something about being surrounded by soft things that smelled like Wade that seemed to make the rest of the world fade away. For the briefest moment, he forgot how badly he wanted to hear from Laura and just lay there, breathing in his mate’s smokey scent. The Wolverine was weak, but at least now he knew why. 

“You’re going to have a lot to answer for when you’re born,” he said, speaking aloud to the baby. Not that it could hear him; every pregnancy website said the fetus wasn’t bigger than a raspberry at this stage and its hearing hadn’t developed yet. He didn’t know when he fell asleep, but he found himself jerking awake an unknowable amount of time later, still curled up in the nest. It was dark outside, and a glance at the clock revealed it was almost half past one in the morning. 

At first he wondered what had woken him. Then his brain caught up with his stomach and he realized he was starving. Not devouring-six-pizzas-after-a-heat starving, but definitely hungry enough that it needed to be addressed sooner rather than later. 

Logan and Wade had been doing a better job of keeping the kitchen stocked, but everything the omega found sounded terrible. Vegetables and dip? Horrific. Chips? Disgusting. A sandwich? Hank had told him to avoid deli meat, but something with peanut butter sounded good. Better than good, actually. Once peanut butter popped into Logan’s mind it was the only thing he could think of. It just so happened that they were out.

Logan decided right then that pregnancy cravings were the worst. There was plenty to eat in the apartment, but nothing except the simple peanut butter sandwich would do. And the peanut butter was gone. Did he really want to leave the apartment at one-thirty in the morning to grab some JIF from the 24 hour convenience store nearby? The answer was no, but going without the peanut butter would be worse. With an irritated noise, he made his way out of the apartment and down to the sidewalk. New York City never slept, but it did occasionally nap, and on this particular early morning there were very few people, and even fewer cars, on the streets. 

Logan shoved his hands in his pockets and kept his head down as he made his way one block over to the bodega. Now that he thought about it, the entire block was too quiet. He couldn’t even hear the distant sound of traffic deeper in the city. Brow furrowing, he let his eyes roam around the block, taking it all in. The lights felt dimmer, too, and he couldn’t smell the garbage piled on the curb at his feet. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Something was wrong.

He heard the air shift behind him, and without thinking he had unsheathed his claws and whirled around, swiping down at whoever was behind him. To his surprise, a man in a black mask caught his hand before the claws could hit. 

“Hello, Logan,” the man said, an edge to his voice. Logan ripped his hand back and attempted a second attack. The man dodged. “My name is Kalah. I have a message for you.”

“And I have one for you. Fuck off.” Logan went low this time, dropping to his knees and lunging forward with his claws extended. The man, Kalah, attempted to move out of the way, but he gasped when the right set sliced at his leg. Blood spurted from the wound, showering Logan’s shirt, and for just a second the lights on the block flickered brightly. He could smell and hear the city again. The moment passed quickly, the scents disappearing and the sounds fading and the lights dimming to leave them in in whatever field Kalah was producing once more. 

Kalah reached to his hip, where a gun-like weapon sat in a holster. It didn’t look like any gun Logan had seen before. Alien? “Kevin says hi.”

In an instant the blood in the omega’s veins was replaced with ice water. No. No no no no no. Not now. Up to this point in the encounter, Logan had operated under Xavier’s rules. He wasn’t trying to kill, but incapacitate. All that went out the window the moment Kevin’s name dropped from Kalah’s lips. He would not go back. He would not. 

“Probably shouldn’t have told me that, bub,” Logan growled. As Kalah drew his weapon, the omega attacked with a ferocity he hadn’t in a long time, throwing blows fast enough that it unbalanced his masked opponent. Kalah took a step off the curb and lost his balance, falling to the asphalt with a thud. The sounds of the city came roaring back, the smells returned, and late-night pedestrians were once more walking around the block. Logan quickly sheathed his claws, ignoring the continued stinging in his hands, and glared down at Kalah. 

“You’ll stay away if you know what’s good for ya’,” he spat. 

Kalah smiled in return. “For now.” And then, in the blink of an eye, the masked attacker vanished. Logan wasn’t wholly surprised; whoever Kalah was, he had some sort of time-altering power. It made sense that he could simply stop time and flee. Why he included Logan in his initial time bubble was unknown; perhaps he had been sent to intimidate, not kill. 

And, he hated to admit, it had worked. He was beyond unnerved—did this mean Kevin had escaped the Void? Was he coming for Logan? If Kevin had escaped the Void, what was their next move? You couldn’t kill energy. It was Logan’s worst nightmare all over again, running endlessly from the alpha forever. Only now…now he had the baby to worry about. 

“Fuck!” Logan snarled to himself. He carded a hand angrily through his hair, and it was then he remembered he was likely bleeding profusely. A glance down revealed drops of blood splashing onto the curb from his knuckles. He couldn’t get peanut butter like this. And, given the revelation that Kevin was back, a peanut butter craving was the least of his worries. With a quick glance over his shoulder, Logan hustled back the way he’d come and didn’t slow down until he had slammed the apartment door shut behind him. 

Logan told Wade about Kalah and Kevin the next day, when the merc had returned from his mission. He hadn’t slept a wink in that time, afraid that if he closed his eyes he’d wake back up in Kevin’s Horror Castle. Wade’s reaction was very similar to Logan’s.

“What the shit? How the fuck is he back?”

“Kalah didn’t say,” Logan said, sitting at the dining room table and unwrapping the bandages on his hands. “Just ‘Kevin says hi’ and then he ran off. Or really, disappeared, but the end result is the same. Fucking coward.” The gauze fell away from his knuckles and he winced. These wounds were not healing as nicely as they had the first time. They were angry and hot to the touch, and he would bet anything they were getting infected. Great. 

“We have to find him,” Wade said. “Find him, and—”

“And what?” Logan dropped his sore hands and looked at his mate. “Do what? Send him back to the Void? Turns out it’s not as great of a prison as we thought. Kill him? He’s made of fucking energy.” He was spiraling, he knew this. He stopped and inhaled deeply through his nose. “There’s nothing we can do.”

“We can let the X-Men know,” Wade said, approaching the table. “I’m sure they’d help. We’re in over our heads.”

Logan didn’t have the energy to argue. “Maybe.”

Wade slid into the chair beside him. “We’re going to figure this out. I promise.” And then the merc, in all seriousness, raised his right hand, pinky extended. Logan rolled his eyes but hooked his own pinky around Wade’s. 

“Sure.”

Wade’s eyes widened when he caught sight of the wounds on the omega’s knuckles. “Holy shit, your hands!” 

Logan pulled back and began to rewrap them. “I know.”

“You need to see a doctor.”

“Isn’t there an urgent care a few blocks from here? I’ll just…go there, I guess.”

“They look infected.”

“And?”

“You need to make sure whatever antibiotic they give you is safe for pregnant people.”

Logan ground his teeth, knowing Wade was right. “Yeah.” He felt so defeated, so utterly crushed. “We’ll…go see Hank, then, I guess.”

They took a generic taxi to the Mansion and found their way down to the infirmary. To Logan’s surprise, Laura was there talking to Hank. It sounded like she was asking for help on her biology homework. 

“Stabby Jr.! Good to see you,” Wade said before Logan could stop him. Both Hank and Laura looked up and her eyes widened. 

“Oh. Um. Sorry, Dr. McCoy. I have to, um. Be anywhere else.”

“We can go over the Kreb’s Cycle later,” Hank said with a smile. He then turned to Logan and Wade. “What brings you both in today?”

Laura kept her head down as she sidestepped Logan, but paused when she noticed his hands. He could see on her face that the bandages there upset her. He tried to smile at her, but knew it was hollow. Clearly she still wasn’t ready to talk to him. Rather than rush out of the room, however, Laura hesitated at the threshold. 

“Not having a healing factor is a pain,” Logan said, turning his attention back to Hank. He unwrapped the gauze from his knuckles, and Hank tsked when he saw the wounds. 

“For you especially I’d imagine. Those don’t look good at all. What made you think it was a good idea to use your claws in this state?”

“Self defense,” Logan said blandly, while the blue-furred mutant went about collecting the necessary medical supplies to treat the cuts. 

“Who’s after you?” It was Laura who spoke, taking a few steps towards the trio. 

Logan was momentarily torn on whether or not to let her in on the fact that Kevin was back. He didn’t want to worry her further, but she was just as involved as Wade was in the whole situation. She deserved to know. “Kevin.”

Laura put a hand to her mouth. “Kevin’s back?”

“And who is this Kevin?” Hank asked, dabbing antiseptic on Logan’s hands. 

“An old enemy. From my world,” Logan said evasively. “We thought we dealt with him a few years ago. Turns out he’s back.”

“Piss-poor timing, too,” Wade said. “Or maybe perfect timing. Maybe he waited until you were knocked up. You said he knew your healing factor would fizzle out.”

Hank frowned as he rewrapped the wounds. “Even if there is someone after you, I would caution you against using your claws in combat. You are susceptible to blood-borne pathogens in this state that pose a risk to you and your unborn child, not to mention the risk of infection from the environment.”

“I gathered that,” Logan answered, wincing as he flexed his newly bandaged hands. The wounds hurt, but they seemed to be more of an inconvenience than anything. 

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Laura said, now fully standing at his shoulder. “Ever. If you can’t fight back against Kevin, you need someone who can.”

Logan, while touched that she still cared for him, utterly loathed the idea of a bodyguard. “I don’t need that. I’m not that fragile.”

“Yes you are,” Wade and Laura said in unison. 

Logan, desperate, turned to Hank. “Back me up. Just because I don’t have a healing factor doesn’t mean I’m useless.”

Hank raised an eyebrow at him, crossing his arms. “I agree with them. You are a formidable opponent with your healing factor, but without it any attacks you make on your opponent could also be life threatening to you. And you have another life to think about.”

“Yeah, Peanut. If nothing else do it for Baby Badger,” Wade tried, a begging note to his tone. 

A muscle worked in Logan’s jaw. He had been a lone wolf for most of his life. In recent years he had come to the realization that he liked having people around him, but he hated the idea of needing them. Of needing to be protected. He was the one who did the protecting, not the other way around. Hell, even when Kevin had initially showed up, they’d defeated him together. Not with him sitting on the sidelines.

“There is no weakness in accepting help when you need it,” Hank said. “And in this instance, I think it would be foolish to refuse.”

Three sets of eyes watched him, and Logan disliked seeing the logic in their arguments. And maybe if it was just him, and no one else, he would have turned them down for good. Reiterated that whatever Kevin threw at him, they would face it together. But he did have the baby to think about, and he recognized that sacrifices had to be made for it. Up to and including accepting a personal guard to protect him from the psychotic alpha that may or may not have found his way back to Logan.

“Fine.”

Laura released the breath she’d been holding, Hank nodded in approval, and Wade hugged him tightly. 

“It’ll be fine,” the merc assured him. “Between Stabitha and I, we’ll unalive him this time. No sequel, no post-credits scene, no three-days-later-he-rose. Just perma-dead.”

“If you say so,” Logan said, unconvinced. 

“I also offer my services as a guard,” Hank said. “Given your desire to keep the specifics of your health condition a secret, I can understand if you do not wish to involve the rest of the X-Men. But if you find yourself needing extra help, we can make room for you here.”

After getting an amoxicillin prescription from Hank for the infected wounds, Logan and Wade made their way out onto the main grounds of the mansion. Laura walked with them, unusually quiet. When they reached the driveway where Logan and Wade waited for the cab they’d called, she finally spoke.

“I’m sorry I stormed out on you.”

Logan’s heart twisted. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I…I just didn’t know what to think. And with Kevin back, I still think this is a stupid idea.” She waved her hand at Logan, clearly alluding to the pregnancy. “I know the choice I’d make if it was me, but I’m not you, and if you want the…the baby, then whatever. I just have to deal with it, right?” She sniffed, and for once it wasn’t Logan who was tearing up. “I just don’t want to lose you.”

“Ah, kid.” Logan pulled Laura into a side hug. “I’ll be fine. The drug trial is working and you and Wade are here to keep Kevin off my tail.”

“Not just that,” Wade said. “We’re going to find that Andrew Tate-wannabe and squish him like bug.”

“Where are we going to start?” Laura asked.

“Where else?” Wade held up the tempad. Logan couldn’t say he was surprised to find that the merc kept it on him. “We’re going back to where this all started. The TVA.”

Chapter Text

There was some argument as to who, exactly, was going to the TVA. Laura wanted to go with Wade, Wade wanted Laura to stay with Logan, and Logan offered to come along. 

“It’s not dangerous. It’s the fucking TVA,” he argued when his mate and his daughter shot him down.  

“What if someone in the TVA pulled a Benedict Arnold and that’s how Kevin busted his way out?” Wade said.

Logan crossed his arms. “We don’t know for sure that Kevin has escaped the Void. So far all we know is he is communicating with people on the outside.”

“And maybe it’s a TVA agent who is letting him do that,” Laura mentioned. 

Wade pointed at the twenty-year-old. “Yes! Stabitha gets it. It’s safer for you to stay here with someone.”

“Okay. And that someone is?” Logan asked.

“Well, it’s got to be your daughter, obviously.”

“Why me?” Laura rounded on Wade. 

“It just makes sense,” he said. “I’m the resident multiverse expert, here. I’ve met every version of Logan, from Claremont’s to Lindelof’s to Loeb’s. I go back to the Worst Universe on the regular.”

“How regular?” Logan growled. Wade ignored him. 

“I was the Chosen One of the sacred timeline. Judge B-15 will speak with me,” he finished. 

Laura rolled her eyes. “And I’m sure she won’t be mad at all that you stole her tempad.” 

“Eh. It’s been three years. It’s water under the bridge.”

Logan looked thoughtful and finally shrugged. “You have a point. If anyone goes it should be you.”

“You’re agreeing with me?” Wade was shocked. 

“You’ve dealt with them the most. They also owe us a favor after we stopped Cassandra. Laura can guard me while you go.”

Laura, realizing she was outnumbered, huffed a sigh. “Yeah, go. I’ll guard Juno here.” She smirked at Logan to let him know she was joking when Wade high-fived her, though he had no idea what the joke was.

“Who’s Juno?”

Wade gasped. “How uncultured. That’s required viewing while I’m gone. I’ll be back when I find something out.” And he flipped open the tempad, opened the glittering orange portal, and vanished. 

There was a brief period of awkward silence between Logan and Laura. Things left unsaid still hung heavy in the air. 

“So, um. What do we do?” Laura asked, finally breaking the tension.

Logan couldn’t help but chuckle. “First time on guard duty?”

“Yeah.” Laura shifted on her feet. “I’ve gone on some missions with the X-Men, but usually we go to the bad guys. We don’t wait for them to come to us.”

“Rule one of guarding someone: make sure you are the only one who can reach them without a fight.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means being out in the open is terrible place to be.”

“Oh.” Laura thought about that. “So back to your apartment, then?”

“Sounds good to me.”

The TVA was exactly as Wade remembered it. It felt almost like a setting in Fallout, all mid-century designs in brutalist cement rooms. As he had planned it, his portal opened right before Judge B-15’s desk. The woman hardly seemed surprised when he appeared, glancing up from her computer with a look of mild annoyance on her face. 

“Mr. Wilson,” she greeted him. 

Wade bowed low. “Your Honor.”

“Are you here to return my tempad, finally?”

“Would if I could, but I can’t.”

“And why not?”

Wade straightened. “Well, you see, I’ve been playing Multiverse Janitor and it’s come in handy in cleaning up your messes.”

B-15 arched an eyebrow. “Our messes?”

“Oh yeah.” Wade sat down in the chair before her and propped his sneakers on the desktop. “Two years ago, some universe-hopping dickstain kidnapped and tortured my universe’s new anchor being. But don’t worry, we sent him to the Void so you wouldn’t get your hands dirty.”

“Well, I’m glad it turned out.” Her tone remained disinterested.

“See, here’s the thing. It didn’t.” Wade narrowed his eyes. “He’s back. Somehow he got out of the Void. Built a raft and fled your version of Alcatraz. That’s like Satan crawling his way out of hell, and as Marvel Jesus, I can’t allow that.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” B-15 said. 

Wade pulled his shoes off the desk and leaned forward. “Somehow, this asshole sent an assassin after Logan. My Logan. The best Logan. And I want to know how he could do that.”

“You want me to make sure this individual is still in the Void?”

Wade sat up straight. “You can do that?”

B-15 smiled faintly. “We’ve kept an eye on Kevin MacTaggert since you sent him back,” she said. So she knew exactly who he was talking about. “Letting him loose again was not our plan. And I think you’ll find that he’s still soundly trapped in the Void.” She tapped a few keys on her keyboard and turned the retro-style monitor Wade’s way. 

The screen lit up with the image of a large, familiar Ant-Man suit—Cassandra’s old hideout—looking worse for the wear. Another tap of the button and B-15 zoomed in on a figure with glowing blue-white eyes standing at the center of the courtyard formed by the suit’s arms. Wade couldn’t hide his shock. 

“Is that…Professor X? The Charles Xavier?”

“He is unfortunately a host to Kevin now. Who, as you can see, is still very much trapped.”

“Then he’s getting messages out some way. Sending nefarious plots to minions outside that desolate pit.”

B-15 turned the monitor back her way and began typing. “That’s not possible. He would need TVA-grade technology to get a signal to any other portion of the multiverse.”

Wade seethed. “Well then how do you explain the hit man who came after Logan, guns blazing?” 

“I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but the Logan you are referring to is perfectly capable of self-defense—”

“Actually, no, he’s not. Little Miss Claws is with child.”

B-15’s fingers stopped over her keyboard. “I’m sorry?”

“You know what universe he blew in from—it’s not exactly a plot twist,” Wade said bitterly. “He’s pregnant. No healing factor, no claws. And now my anchor being is being hunted like he pissed off conservative Twitter. I need answers. I need to know how Kevin is sending the henchmen after him. Is it a memo from HR? Multiverse Craigslist?”

B-15’s face darkened. “We have no evidence—”

“Oh, fuck off with the no evidence. I’m sure your fancy Space Age technology can find something out. I don’t want my anchor being dying like a Sean Bean character again. How is Kevin talking to people on the outside?”

The woman across the desk pursed her lips, and Wade was certain he was about to get a one-way ticket to the Void himself. But to his surprise, B-15 looked back at her screen and tapped a few more keys. He didn’t miss how her eyes widened ever so slightly. 

“There have been transmissions from the Void routed through the TVA.”

Wade froze. “So you do have another rogue agent like Paradox?”

“No, I don’t think so,” B-15 murmured. “We found a phone number on Paradox’s tempad that he called regularly leading up to the Time Ripper Incident. That number is active again, but it’s not calling Paradox this time.”

“It’s calling out of the Void? He can get a signal all the way to my universe from there?”

B-15 looked troubled. “If Paradox provided a modified device to someone in the Void, that phone could theoretically reach any individual in the multiverse.”

Wade was following. “So Kevin called someone, using a piece of TVA technology that got left behind.”

B-15 exhaled through her nose. “It seems that way, yes.”

“Fuck.”

“Fuck, indeed.”

“So let’s just take the phone from him. Case closed, mystery solved thanks to us meddling kids.”

“I will work with my agents to do just that, but you have dealt with Kevin MacTaggert before. You know that is not a simple task.”

“I don’t fucking care. Send me in, I’ll get the phone back,” Wade said hotly. 

“And risk that tempad you have falling into his hands? Not likely.” B-15 stood, motioning Wade to his feet as well. The merc begrudgingly obeyed. “If anything goes wrong, that could give him a way out of the Void. We will deal with this matter internally.”

“So I’m just supposed to sit back and do nothing?”

“Yes.”

“Well, fat chance of that happening. Watch me go Dark Brotherhood and do the job you and your peons are too cowardly to do myself.”

For the first time, Judge B-15’s demeanor changed to something vaguely threatening. “I understand your concerns, Mr. Wilson. We are in the business of preserving healthy timelines, and yours is no different. We will do what we can. But you will not be allowed to jeopardize the entire multiverse for one being. Do I make myself clear?”

Wade ground his teeth. “Clearer than your fucking conscience if this goes south.”

B-15 nodded curtly. “Then please be on your way before I send you on myself.”

Juno was a sappy, heart-felt, coming-of-age movie that Logan realized early on he was not going to finish. It was The Notebook all over again, and he was so sick of getting teary-eyed and weepy. At his request, Laura put on Final Destination, and then promptly changed it to Young Frankenstein. Neither of them needed to watch a movie depicting a thousand different ways to die. They were halfway through the film when an orange portal appeared in the kitchen and Wade stumbled through, grumbling. 

“I take it your visit was productive,” Logan said dryly. Wade slammed the tempad on the counter. 

“Well, I got answers, if that’s what you mean. The bad news is I have been forbidden from acting on them.”

“What?” Laura paused the movie. “Why?”

“B-15 didn’t take the tempad back, but they don’t want it falling into Kevin’s grubby little paws.” 

“Being forbidden from doing something hasn’t stopped you before,” Logan insisted. 

“No,” Wade admitted, but Logan got the feeling he wasn’t telling them everything. 

“So why don’t you use the tempad to act on what you found out?”

Wade took a deep breath and looked Logan in the eye. “Because if I do, and I fail, and they take the tempad…I lose access to your universe. And this would be the worst possible time to lose our portal gun.”

Logan half-wished Wade would give it up. He wanted to believe they didn’t need it anymore; they had Hank, they had Alchemax, and things would turn out. But he also couldn’t deny that if there were any complications it would be good to have the tempad around as an “In Case of Emergency.” And a part of him, larger than he cared to admit, didn’t want to lose access to the last piece he had of his X-Men, even if it was the remnants of the universe Logan had fucked up. 

“Then where do we go from here?” Laura asked. 

“We don’t let the expectant father out of our sight, for one.”

Logan made a face. “Great.”

“And we hope that the TVA does something soon.”

Logan’s faith in the TVA was not very strong, given the few impressions he’d had of them. Sure, they had pulled Remy and Laura and Blade an Elektra out of the Void, but they’d also put them in the Void in the first place. And if they knew what was going on but had forbidden Wade from getting involved, he didn’t have high hopes that they would solve it themselves.

Someone knocked on the door at that moment, rousing Logan from his thoughts. All three of them looked at the doorway with confusion.

“Did you guys order something?” Wade asked. 

Laura shook her head. “No.”

It was then that the dulled sounds of the city outside their walls diminished to nothing, the lights in the ceiling dimmed to the point of uselessness, and as Wade approached the door, Logan noted he could no longer smell his daughter or his mate. Realization hit him like a truck.

“Don’t open that!” He vaulted over the back of the couch, but it was too late. Wade glanced through the peephole and had just enough time to yell, “Get down!” before the door exploded inwards. Pieces of wood and metal rained down on them, and Logan’s first instinct was to unsheathe his claws when he saw the dark form of Kalah in the doorway. The searing pain of the metal against his wounded flesh stopped him almost instantly. 

Thankfully, Wade and Laura had jumped into action. Laura had followed Logan’s path over the couch, the claws in her hands unsheathed, and was running towards Kalah. Wade had grabbed a knife from the seemingly nowhere and was also racing at their adversary. Kalah had his weapon raised and fired off three shots of pure energy, all three narrowly missing Laura. With a yell, she threw a kick at his abdomen with her right foot. He dodged and fired again, the energy blast burying itself in the wall. 

Wade was upon him now, and he slashed downward at Kalah’s hand with the knife. The blade cut through nothing more than the dark fabric of Kalah’s sweatshirt. But, while Kalah had been ducking away from the knife, Wade threw a punch that connected with the assailant’s jaw. Logan could hear the crack from where he crouched behind the couch. Kalah reeled back and aimed at Wade, shooting him directly in the chest. The merc fell backwards. 

“Just a flesh wound,” he panted, staggering to his feet to stare Kalah down. The attacker snarled and raised his weapon to fire again, but was stopped when Laura launched herself off the floor. She knocked his hand aside just as he pulled the trigger and the blast went wide, shattering the hanging light above the dining table. Wade was advancing, knife still in hand, and Kalah seemed to realize he had miscalculated his attack. He leered at Logan over Wade’s shoulder. 

“They can’t guard you forever,” he said, and in the next moment the smells came back and the remaining lights brightened in their sockets. The space where Kalah had once stood was empty. The coward had fled again. 

Logan straightened from his crouch, assessing the damage. “He knows where we are. We need to move.”

Wade approached as the last of the damaged skin on his chest healed. “Couldn’t agree more, Peanut.”

“At least we know what we’re up against now,” Laura said.

Wade snorted. “Yeah. And the jackass can pull a Houdini and disappear before we ever land a killing strike.” He looked to Logan. “I’m afraid you’re going to be under 24 hour surveillance until we get this under control.”

“I don’t think I can argue against that,” Logan relented. He nudged at a piece of the door with his foot. “So. Had a chance to find that three bedroom yet?”