Chapter Text
In hindsight, maybe trying to bring in a guy with three foot claws in his hands and a reputation for utterly brutal acts of murder wasn’t Wade’s greatest idea.
“Look, snookums-“
“Do NOT fucking call me that!” Hey, you remember those claws that were mentioned earlier? They were now an inch away from Wade’s face. He’d be lying if he said that didn’t make him a bit excited.
“Okay then, honey badger - how about you put those claws away like a good little kitty and just talk about this, huh? I’m good at talking! Don’t call me the merc with the mouth for nothing, y'know? Could talk a dog off a meat wagon, I could. Not in a persuasive way but more in a ‘oh my god if I hear one more word I’m going to implode’ kinda way.” Wade babbled, trying his best to arch his face away from the immediate threat of having three gaping wounds in across it. His face was fucked up enough as it was.
“Huh. Startin’ to see what you mean,” Logan drawled, sounding vaguely sarcastic, “go on then, talk. Give me one good fuckin’ reason not to turn you into mince meat after you threatened to take me to the fuckin’ Pinkertons.”
Ah yes, exposition time! It was Wade’s favourite part of the day.
Logan “The Wolverine” Howlett was a famous - or more rather, infamous - outlaw, who had something of a grudge against the Pinkertons after they had more or less decimated the “X-Men”, a ragtag group of freaks who were more like a bunch of good Samaritans than a proper gang. Y’know, until they all died and Logan began his rampage across the states, painting them in Pinkerton red blood and drinking every saloon out of business on the way. The usual.
Wade, being the northern star of the morally just world that he was(n’t), had been contacted for a special mission by the Pinkertons, as none of the men on their payroll had the skills to take on a man who ate bullets for breakfast. Despite having his own gripes with the lawmen, he’d taken the job - things don’t just magically pay for themselves after all and hoo-boy had they offered a lot. Unfortunately for them, it wasn’t a “I’d gladly get torn to shreds by a feral little wolf-man” amount of money. Such a shame.
“I hate them as much as you!! Okay, no maybe not as much, what with your Tragic Backstory™ and all but I definitely still hate them. I’m a fun loving, mischievous little guy, full of whimsy and chaos and they constantly piss all over my parade. It feels personal sometimes! Sooo, I was thinking, seeing as how I really don’t want to get sliced ‘n’ diced, neither of us can really kill the other, we both hate the same people, and I have inside information on them…we could, y’know…team up?” The last two words were said in a hesitant, high pitched tone of voice.
“Team. Up.” Logan parroted, looking as if Wade had killed his dog in front of him.
“Yeah! C’mon it’ll be fun! We could be like the Van Der Lindes back when it was only three of them and they were cool. We could call ourselves the Van der Helsing’s! Might be a copyright infringement but that just makes it more fun.”
“That’s a stupid fuckin’ name. And you’re a stupid fuckin’ person.” Logan spat out, ever the charmer.
“You’ll learn to love it, Gabriel.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds, Wade watching nervously as the other man seemed to study him with those sharp, hazel eyes of his. He cocked his head to the side, in a manner akin to a baby owl, eyes tightening in contemplation before he gave a sharp nod to himself.
Snakt.
“You better be as useful as you say you are. One - and I mean one - fuck up and I'll throw your ass on the streets where you belong.” Logan said, pulling himself off the gun for hire and holding out a hand to help him get back off the dirty floor of the saloon they’d cleared out. Grinning beneath the cloth of his mask, Wade gripped the strong hand a tad too eagerly and hopped back to his feet.
“Trust, Peanut, I’m a stand up outlaw. Got an affinity for killing, sexy as sin, immune to pretty much everything, I can cook, clean and I can improve all those long nights by the fire with my dulcet tones…amongst other things ~”
“Uh-huh, sure,” Clearly, Logan wasn’t convinced. God, Wade loved it when they played hard to get. “You owe me a fuckin’ drink.”
“Right away, Princess.”
Logan was pretty sure the bartender wouldn’t mind if he broke one measly little shot glass over Wade’s skull.
Turns out, the bartender did mind the loss of his shot glass.
He also seemed to mind the fact that Logan and Wade's little showdown had scared off his customer base from here to Timbuktu. Wherever that was. As such, the two men had been quite literally thrown out of the saloon, with an order to never show their faces again.
“That was a good fuckin’ bar you lost me, Bub.” Logan growled for the umpteenth time as he and his new tag-a-long made their way to where their horses were tethered.
“Oh, smooth out those spikes of yours, Porcupine, it's not so bad. This is America! There's a bar every five yards, I'm sure you'll find one that fits your tastes, my liege.” Wade replied with an over-exaggerated bow, earning himself yet another growl which was somehow more guttural than the last. Luckily for Wade, before Logan could reply - be that verbally or physically - the sound of whinnying horses broke through the tension.
“What in the ever-lovin’ fuck is that?” Came Logan's slightly bewildered voice as he looked upon the two “horses” stood side by side.
“This is Hermioneigh - also known as Horsepool! Isn't she just gorgeous?” Wade cooed, scratching her behind the ears. Contrary to her alias, Hermioneigh was not a horse but was, in fact, a particularly disease ridden looking mule with an unnerving thousand yard stare.
“Not quite the word I'd use.” Logan sneered, pulling himself up on his own actual horse: The Iron Bull, a snappy yet fiercely loyal Ardennes. He’d developed a fondness for the breed during his time in the Civil War and this one was no less brazen than the others he'd ridden.
“She's a sweetheart,” Wade said with a hand pressed to his chest, “Yours looks like he wants to kill me. I can see it in his eyes. If he ever needs a heart transplant just go to the nearest building site and ask for a brick.”
Iron Bull gave a harsh snort, beating his hooves a bit too close to Wade's feet for his liking, causing him to let out an incredibly manly yelp and clamber onto the relative safety of Hermioneigh's back.
“Hah! Good boy.”
“Good parents don't encourage violent behaviour, Peanut! Look how I turned out!”
Sometimes Logan wished he could die, because there was nothing he wanted to do more after two hours of Wade's brand of incessant babbling than put so many slugs into himself that he'd spend his entire afterlife shitting out buckshot.
Wade's camp was as chaotic as the man himself. Pots and pan scattered everywhere, his tent in absolute tatters and even the wildlife seemed to get noisier the closer to the camp they got. It would be fascinating if it wasn't so irritating.
“Welcome to my humble abode, Peanut! Make yourself at home - pretty sure I've got some canned peaches around here you can help yourself to.” Wade provided as he tethered Hermioneigh to a nearby tree, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a sugarcube which was gobbled up within seconds.
“Fuck no. Rather eat my own shit. I got my own food. You know how to build a fire?”
“Define know.”
“Jesus Christ. C'mere,” Logan growled with a beckoning hand, picking up branches as he went, “I know toddlers who are more self-sufficient than you are, Bub.”
A few arguments and a not-so-accidental accident which ended up with Wade's ass on fire, Logan was turning some deer meat he'd been keeping in his saddlebag over the roaring flames. Sulking, Wade stabbed at the peaches swimming in the can, imagining they were tiny little Wolverines.
“So. I gotta ask, what's with the whole murderous rampage thing you got going on? You just killing every lawman you see - which, by the way, extremely attractive - or are you looking for someone in particular?” Wade asked, feeling a bit put out by the way Logan was glaring at the fire like it had personally offended him.
“Yeah, fella called Milton,” Logan grit out, reaching to take the now cooked deer, biting into it with a somewhat unnecessary harshness. His eyes tightened in a mix of grief and anger, lips curling up in a low growl and his fingers drumming against his knee, “He was the one who spearheaded the attack on the X-Men. And I'm gonna fuckin’ kill him for it.”
There'd been no warning for it. Never was. One minute he'd been getting shitfaced at the saloon, and the next he was riding into a blood-stained camp, the bodies of his new-found family littering the ground. The rage that overtook him cast a red fog over the memories of what happened next.
He knew - God, he knew - that him going on one of his berserker rages across the country wasn't what the X-Men - what Charles - would've wanted him to do. He knew he was tarnishing their memory but he just couldn't stop. His rage festered just beneath the skin, threatening to break out at any given time and the only way he knew to make it settle was to bite and claw and scratch and bleed.
It was easier to pretend that nothing had changed since he'd been with the X-Men. That he was the same fucking animal he was when Charles had found him. To lie to himself.
Lying was second nature to Logan, always had been. A habit woven into himself so deeply that it became nigh-impossible to remove the tainted threads. He found that the truth was often too frightening to face. Behind all the muscle and gruffness, still lay that lonely child, shunned by society for what he was, burying reality under a carefully crafted fantasy. However, if Logan had learned anything, it was that the world was apathetic towards such things. It had a nasty tendency to tear through fantasies like a bullet through flesh. Harsh, abrupt and often bloody.
Despite what Charles liked to spew, Logan knew he wasn't a good man. If he was a man at all. He was angry. He killed and he hurt and he fucking enjoyed it sometimes.
But, he wasn't a bad man either, he supposed - he was just...Logan. A not-quite-good but not-quite-bad man who'd dealt with the set of cards life had given him; a product of both his circumstances and his decisions.
He wanted to be good but ‘good’ was such an intangible yet definite thing, simple yet complex. And if ridding the world of scum like Milton made him a bad man, then so fucking be it. He'd wear it like a badge of honour. He was sure Charles would understand. Eventually.
They sat in silence for a while, both men lost in their heads, though for entirely different reasons.
“I could help you find him.” Came Wade's voice, breaking Logan out of his stupor.
“You?” Logan barked out an incredulous laugh, trying his best to cover up his hammering heart.
“Yes, me! Seems you've forgotten that I started out today trying to bring you in to the Pinkertons. They have no idea I decided to bump uglies with you instead,” Wade continued with a conspiratory grin, “You're a hard guy to track, seems more than reasonable that it'd take a while for me to find you…and in the mean time.”
“You use your connection to find out about Milton…” Logan finished in a hushed tone of voice, receiving a slow nod in reply.
“I- but, why!? We just met and I tried to put my claws through your face! Why would you-” Logan stammered.
“What can I say? I have a soft spot for morally grey, rugged men with unresolved trauma. Your wish is my command, angel face.” Wade responded, puckering his lips at the other man.
“Eugh.” Logan sneered, turning back to his dinner, but with the beginnings of a grin on his face. It had been a long time since he'd had a reason to smile.
The Pinkertons weren't gonna know what hit ‘em.