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Logan started going back out with Wade to his merc jobs. It wasn’t so bad, now. He’s able to fully be there, and feel like Wade’s partner in everything. Getting married to the guy soon probably helps some issues Logan has. He doesn’t feel like Wade’s dog, during the jobs, doesn’t feel the echo of whatever his brother and him had.
He still refuses to go to therapy, though- he’s doing just fine just living with his shit, he thinks. He doesn’t need to talk about it with strangers. He’s got Wade.
Being able to fully be there with Wade on his jobs, without being in his own head, Logan is able to properly realize how much Wade likes to talk when he fights. He likes to talk no matter what he’s doing, Logan knows; Wade talked a lot when they fought in the Void, and he talks a lot when they do their special date night, but Logan hasn’t realized how much Wade talks when he’s actively trying to kill someone. Logan, who tends to get a singular focus of kill , finds it hard to match Wade in this.
“Did Laura tell you- you bitch! - tell you about her joining the X-Men?”
Wade brings this current topic up to Logan while killing some gang in New Jersey, in a stereotypical shitty building, only breaking his flow when one of them manages to stab Wade in the leg after Wade slices them down.
“Yes.” Logan answers Wade. He decapitates a man. The head rolls away and Logan tries to remind himself to make sure not to step on it.
“Do you think that that’s right for her?” Wade shoots someone in the head without looking, and then throws the gun and the katana in the air, switching them with the other hand, cutting down three men at once.
“We havin’ this talk now?” Logan groans. He slides down low and takes out a few legs. He feels a shot in his back, exiting through his front. He moves on.
“I’m thinking of it!” Wade defends himself, while somehow manages to slice a candle (why was there a candle here?) in such a way that the flame flies off his katana, and then sets someone on fire.
It was, in all honesty, really beautiful. Logan loves how inventive Wade fights.
“Why would the X-Men be wrong for her?” Logan slices a man from shoulder to hip. He’s less inventive, but no less efficient.
“Don’t you think- watch it, dickbag - that she should try to be a person before she’s a soldier?”
Jesus fucking Christ, Wade , Logan thinks. We’re really having this conversation now?
“She has been.” A hand holding a gun drops, and then claws in the skull for good measure. “For over a year now.”
“You having a fuckin’ PTA meeting right now or something? Really?” A nameless thug asks, bewildered.
Wade shoots him twice in the head.
“I just don’t want her to think she has to be an X-Man.” Wade continues. “X-Woman? They really should clarify that. It’s 2026 for God’s sake.”
“She wants it.” Claws in the gut. “Has since she was a kid.”
“Peanut,” Wade starts, in his serious voice, which fuck. He usually only has that voice when he’s about to be insightful. Logan claws a man in the eyes extra hard. “You, out of all people, should know feeling like you want something just because it’s your only choice.”
Ah, fuck.
Wade cuts the final guy clean in half, and turns to Logan before either halves of the body hit the ground.
“I need to talk to her, don’t I?” Logan sighs.
Wade walks over and presses his mask covered lips to Logan’s cheek in a faux kiss. “Yes, daddy, you do.”
Logan is so preoccupied with the dread of having to talk about deep emotions with Laura that he doesn’t even cuss Wade out for calling him that.
He loves the kid, but fuck, heart-to-hearts are not his strong suit. He’s bad at advice. He tries, and maybe he’s fine with simple things- that’s a good color on you, I wouldn't talk to that person again, take geometry instead of algebra- but deep, important things? Wade honestly is better than him at that. Hell, Laura is better at it than him.
Did Laura think she wanted to be an X-Men, because that’s what her original Logan decided? Logan didn’t think twice about her moving into the X-Mansion after the Void, why would he? They were strangers at that point, and it’s not like she could or would have moved in with him, Wade, and Althea in their one bedroom apartment. And after he and Wade moved out, well- she seemed happy there. Was she really, though? Did she have doubts, but felt like she couldn't talk to him about it? Has he been failing at being her father, without noticing?
He thinks about it all throughout the night, and the next day, and the morning after that, until he can see Laura.
Logan thinks of taking her to eat, but figures going on a walk would be better for both of them for this talk- able to look away from each other, and wide space to work through if Logan says the wrong thing.
He takes her on a hike, and although Logan thinks it’s fairly obvious that something is bothering him, Laura seems happy. They walk for an hour, and then they go off the trail and use their claws to climb a cliffside, Logan listening to her stories about school and him updating her on him and Wade.
“So,” Laura starts after a while, legs swinging absently over the cliff’s edge. “Why did you set this up?”
Logan looks over the edge of the cliff. Maybe he should jump; it would postpone this talk, if nothing else. How can he do this, be what Laura needs? He’s barely a man, let alone a good father figure.
“Is everything alright?” Laura asks after he doesn’t respond, inching closer to try to look at his face. Logan automatically looks away, and then forces himself to face her.
“Wade said,” he starts, and then stops, frowning. “No. The X-Men, I mean. Why did you join the X-Men?”
Laura cocks her head to the side, like he does. Is that something she always did? Or did she see her original Logan do it, if he did, and picked it up? Or did she get it from him ?
Nature vs Nurture is a strange thing, Logan thinks.
“I want to be better.” Laura tells him.
“Than what?” Than who?
Laura shrugs helplessly. “Than what others think of me. The X-Men help people. I should help people.”
“There's other ways to help.” Logan has to look away, looking over the forest they're in.
“What else could I do?”
“Anything. Get a degree, or not. Travel with Jubilee. Get a job that anyone could get. Anything , kiddo.”
“Logan…Do you…not want me to be an X-Men?” Laura whispers. Logan can see her out of the corner of his eyes, looking away as well. She’s 20 years old, but Logan can see her, age 11, looking up at another version of him. Wondering if she could trust him; if he would love her, believe in her.
He does. He can’t imagine a version of him that knew her and didn’t.
“It’s not that.” Logan denies. “I want you to… to do what you think is best for you.”
“And you think the X-Men aren't?”
“Listen, kiddo,” Logan takes a deep breath. “If you let yourself be steeped in blood for so long, you stop smelling it. Even us; especially us. And the X-Men, they’re good guys, but even the good guys can overuse a weapon.”
“Are we weapons?” Laura asks him in that cold, distant way she does sometimes, that makes Logan think of being collared in all ways but physical, of Weapon X, of forcing himself not to have a family.
“No.” Logan says firmly. He reaches out to hold her hands in his, making sure to look and maintain eye contact. Eyes, so similar to his own, stare back at him. “We’re people . You’re a person, Laura, and you got people who love you, and you got options. You don’t have to be-”
“What they made me.” Laura finishes softly. She says it like she’s been told that before. Logan doesn’t have to wonder long on who that was.
“You’re a lot like me.” Logan tells her. “You carry it better, but there's still issues we have- When you feel heartache, it turns to anger, don’t it? So fast that they feel like the same thing.”
Laura nods, her hands twitching in his.
“And when you let that grief turn to anger, and it festers with the blood…you can lose yourself. So I just- I want you to know that, in case you're joining the X-Men because you feel like you have to. It’ll be worse, if you are.”
“I want to do this.” Laura promises. She’s grown, but her hands are still small in his, even more noticeable when she gently takes her hands out of his. She lets the claws in her hands out, the sun reflecting on the metal. “My claws are going to be used to help people, and that’s it. A version of you told me I would have to learn to live with hurting people. This is how I’m doing it. I don’t want to be a random person, or a weapon. I want to matter ; I would be a team member, not a tool.”
Logan swallows, his throat clicking. She looks him in the eyes, and he sees a strength in her. He always knew Laura was better than him, a real hero, but it shows right now. She’s in charge of her life.
He’s so fucking proud of her, it hurts. “C’mere, Laura.”
She retracts her claws, and leans into his side, his arm going around her, holding her tight. She presses her face to his chest, and he presses his to her hair. She smells mainly like sweat and her apple shampoo, although Logan can get whiffs of Jubilee’s fireworks, and the dust that sits in the mansion. And underneath that all, the pure scent of Laura, similar to his own.
“I love you, you know that, right, kid?” He says softly into her hair. He doesn’t tell her that enough. She should know she’s loved, and it should never be a doubt for her. “And I’m proud of you.”
“I know.” Laura replies. “I love you too, Dad.”
Logan presses his face harder into her head, and Laura thankfully doesn’t comment on the tears she must feel. “You’ll be a great X-Man.”
Logan doesn’t comment on Laura’s sniffle, just holds her tighter.
Later, when they’re walking back down to the trail, Logan asks, “Are you getting an alias, or a code name, or somethin’?”
Laura shrugs. “I’m working on it. Jubilee said I should do an animal like you. She said Honey Badger, but-” Laura laughs at the face Logan automatically makes, thinking of the nickname Wade has given him. “Yeah, my reaction as well.”
They go through names together- Talon, Scout, X- all of them denied. Laura didn’t give reasons for her not wanting the names, and Logan didn’t ask.
And then, even later, when they took a cab to a diner they were going to meet Wade at, Logan asks, too casual to be real, “What about Wolverine?”
Laura looks at him blankly. “What do you mean?’”
“For you.” Logan clarifies. “Your X-Men name.”
“ You’re Wolverine.” Laura stresses, as if he didn’t know. Logan snorts.
“And you can be too.”
Logan didn’t know how Laura would react to his suggestion, but it wasn’t her looking stressed. “Why would I be Wolverine when you’re still here?”
Logan moves his head side to side, trying to think of a way to explain. He suggested the name without thinking too deeply about it, but now that he said it, it felt right. He’s old now, and he’s not a hero. Maybe he could have been, maybe he’s done heroic things in the past (his hand in Wade’s, fully believing he’ll die, wishing Wade took his mask off so he could look into his eyes before they were destroyed by their very atoms) but he’s old. He’s tired.
Wolverine wasn’t a hero in his world. The name brings shame, not glory. But they’re not in his world, they’re in Laura’s.
“You’ve been Laura, and it’s time you’re more. I’ve been Wolverine for so long, and I think it’s time I was just Logan. ‘Sides, seems there’s enough ‘Logan the Wolverine’ out there.” He gives her a crooked grin.
“Retirement?” Laura clarifies carefully.
“Not fully, but yeah, maybe. It’s not like I’m doing anything more than helping Wade every now and again.”
“I’m not sure.” Laura moves her wrist in a way Logan recognizes, so he gently grabs her wrist to stop her. It doesn’t hurt to feel the claws under their skin, but it’s still not a good sign.
“You know why my name is Logan?” He questions her, carefully rubbing where the tips of her claws rest below her wrist with his thumb.
Laura shakes her head.
“My father’s last name was Logan. I took the name after I left my brother- none of us shared a family name, but I felt-” Logan cuts himself off, shaking his head. “Point is, a name is important, and it doesn’t stay with just one person. His name is mine, and mine can be yours.”
Laura’s eyes sweep his face as she thinks this over. Her brows furrows, her mouth thinned. “Okay,” she finally says. “I will think on it.”
“Okay,” Logan echoes, smiling softly at her. He lets go of her wrist. “You don’t have to take the name if you don’t want, but it’s there for you, Laura.“
She smiles back at him, a small but genuine thing. Logan doesn’t know if she will take the offer of becoming Wolverine, but he hopes she does. The name is a part of him, for better or worse, a brand as much as a title. Sharing it with Laura…it won’t lighten the load, he won’t put that on her, but- maybe something good can come from it. If anyone could do it, it’s her.
Logan believes in Laura.