Chapter Text
In the strange and unpredictable world of New York, Logan took two steps off the subway and immediately collided with someone who swiped him all over, took his wallet, and ran with the efficiency of an office worker on his tenth cup of coffee for the day. Logan snorted, let every other person on the subway get on and off the train without him moving, and then continued on his way. The thief was clearly an amateur, swiping Logan's first fake wallet which was filled with two pinches of pocket lint and a cute picture of Mary Puppins asleep on the couch.
Once the sway of bodies passed him, the stairs back out of the subway were quiet, for New York, which meant he only passed four different buskers and one homeless person asking for change. Logan dropped a couple of dollars in the homeless person's hat, which made every single busker start watching him like they were customers and Logan was a supermarket worker walking around with a roll of discount labels, and then he emerged onto the street. Manhattan was a different beast to the quiet corner of the upper north side he and Wade lived in, and Logan stepped out between a pho pop-up restaurant and a tattoo parlor specializing in pet portraits, and he drew his hood up against the rain. The world existed in technicolour. His senses both magnified and dulled by the weather, picking out specific scents like car exhaust and a passing woman's perfume but dulling down the harsh chemicals of his deodorant or the smell of onions from the hot dog cart up the street. It was only a minute or so into his walk down the street that he realised a tall, bearded man was following him. It took another minute for Logan to get down-wind, and then to realise who exactly it was.
Wet dog, gunpowder, and a cheap aftershave. The man following him smelled like he needed a shower yesterday but gave a middle finger to counting his time left on Earth in such long stretches; Like the kind of guy who lived hour by hour.
Logan stopped under an awning of a fancy candle shop and the man caught up. His grey bulldog smiled up at Logan, and if the man hadn't been wearing a scowl which could have killed someone less prepared for it, then Logan might have smiled back.
Logan gave the man a once over. "Nice beard. No one ever tell you that a beard makes you look less like a friendly neighbourhood lumberjack and more like the local creep?"
The man squinted at him, though Logan assumed it was supposed to be a glare. "Cut the crap. How did you resist that weird lady's mind control?"
Logan sneered, but the man in front of him, the Punisher, only sneered right back. The road they were on was filled with cars but empty of pedestrians, with only a few people hurrying past with their umbrellas unfurling like the elytra of beetles and their mackintosh coats swishing like trash bags. Down the street, the subway entrance was a hub of activities. Logan could still hear the lonely saxophone player trying to catch a few bucks from passers by, but Logan both assumed and hoped that the homeless person he'd tipped earlier would be getting more money.
"The X-gene," Logan said quietly, leaning in a little. "Ever heard of it?"
The Punisher snorted. "'Ever heard of it'," he mocked. "Yeah, I have. Few million people got it. So you're telling me that under the, let's be real here, highly specific circumstance where you're getting in a fight with someone who has mind control, you're fine?"
Logan rolled his shoulders. "One of my many talents."
"And what else?"
The grey pitbull chose that moment to rub its head against Logan's hand, and Logan gave it a thorough scratch behind the ears. Logan gave the Punisher a grin which was more like a snarl. "Fuck off."
A second dog entered the scratching zone and demanded attention. Both Logan and the Punisher snapped up to look at Wade, who was standing in the abandoned street with them, holding an Easter-special trenta double chocolate mocha with whipped cream and a triple pump of vanilla syrup in one hand and a black americano in the other. Mary Puppin's lead was looped around Wade's wrist, and he was wearing a Juicy Couture skirt and rain jacket combo. Mary Puppins was the epitome of poise and daintiness compared to the pitbull.
Wade cocked a hip. "Frank." He cocked the other hip and looked at Logan. "Baby."
The Punisher — Frank — mouthed the word 'baby' in confusion. Wade handed Logan the americano and then pointed a finger at Frank's chest. He said, "What are you doing talking to my pumpkin on this fine day?"
"It's a free country."
"Actually it's approximately sixty-one thousand dollars plus tax for someone to live in the so-called land of the free for a year, and I don't know if you've noticed but the average New Yorker spends about a fuck-ton more than that. Plus." Wade leaned down without breaking eye contact with Frank and picked Mary Puppins up. "All of us are free until the police learn how to get us."
"He was asking me about the Rebane's case," Logan said. "Just sharing a secret between friends."
Frank nodded and said, slowly, "yeah, friends ."
"Yeah, secret." Wade folded his arms, lead daintily hanging from one finger and his massive coffee cup clutched like a lifeline in the other hand. "What secret?"
The Punisher breathed in slowly. "Look. Sorry. This got off on the wrong foot. I'm asking because Hawkeye shared a little news through the grapevine about a team. A team which is interested in blowing things up and killing people. You know Gregory Timpson?"
"The porn star?" Wade asked, and Logan shook his head.
"The politician." Frank looked between them both and sighed. "Look, he was a real stickler for policy, right? Implemented a lot of rules about prisoners in the New York prisons to be treated fairly and receive mandatory one-to-one visits to the shrink. He did good work after I got out of there, and he used to be a big advocate for enhanced people’s rights."
Wade nodded and took a loud slurp of his drink. Logan kept scratching the pitbull behind the ears. Mary was trying to nose the trash bags nearby into a larger pile.
“Used to be?” Logan asked when it became clear Frank was waiting for them to confirm they were listening.
Frank nodded. "Then, boom, there's these four capes on the scene, and the politician turns around and says 'actually, no', and is all about undoing what he's done. Weird, right? He’s even pretty open about his brother having the X-Gene, so this one-eighty is personal, too. It’s not like he could make the decision overnight without something being fishy about the situation."
Wade latched on to Logan's arm with the force of a gorilla. "Well that's super fucking great, bestie, but we've got an appointment at the gynecologist at- five minutes ago. Come on, Logan."
Now, Logan wasn't the kind of man who could be dragged about unwillingly, but Wade's weird and abrupt end to the conversation, as well as Mary Puppins entering the bag of trash and pulling it out all over the street, made him take a couple of steps. It was probably just the wind which convinced Logan to turn around and mouth 'later' at Frank, whose expression went from pissed off to understanding in a moment. Frank nodded and turned, disappearing into the crowd with the only notable thing about him being the smiling grey pitbull at his side.
"Vet," Logan said, surprising even himself. Wade stopped mid stride. "We're taking her to the vet. Not the gynecologist."
Snorting, Wade continued to walk arm in arm with Logan, though he wasn't hurrying like before. "A doctor is a doctor, regardless of whether they're for animals. What did Frankie want with you, anyhow?"
"He wanted to know about how I resisted the Rebane's mind control. I already said."
"Uh-huh, so I guess he thinks that politician is under some kind of spell?"
"Or he's being coerced. Threatened. Doesn't really seem like Frank’s kind of scene, handling enhancements or whatever. He’s usually just a— “ Don’t say terrorist. “...terrorist.”
Wade snorted. "Mister The Punisher is all about justice, even if he doesn't know it. He's the kind of guy who would vote for free healthcare and mandatory pizza Fridays if he thought they were justified."
"Still. Super villain groups, mind control, and politicians. Only one of those fits his brand."
Wade shrugged, his shoulder bumping Logan's. "Whatever," he said. "We're here. She needs moral support from both of us, remember? She's sensitive."
Logan didn't argue, but in all honesty, he was fairly sure that Mary wouldn't notice an atomic bomb being dropped on her. He tucked her under one arm and Wade opened the door. Their conversation was shelved for the time being.
Unfortunately, not forever. Later that night when the rain had eased off into a dribble and the evening encroached like an alligator on a golf course, the door to the bodega chimed when Logan was in the back room slicing onions. Ever since Pietro, the owner's son, had seen Logan's wicked set of claws he had been trying to encourage Logan to show them off in the bodega by slicing up fruit and vegetables. He had once or twice, but tended to use a knife for two reasons: one, he could cut things more evenly with a knife, and two, he hated the feeling of onion juice going into his wounds when he retracted his claws.
Pietro made an aborted noise at the counter and then called into the back room, "Logan? One of your friends is here."
Logan put the knife down and wiped his hands on a dish rag, licking over his bottom teeth as he leaned backwards to look into the shop. Sure enough, Frank Castle aka. The Punisher was at the counter, and his dog was whining outside. He swapped places with Pietro, and Pietro ducked under Logan's arm so fast that there might have been a fine trail of smoke left behind.
"What kind of sandwich do you want?" Logan asked.
Frank stared at him for a second and then took in a breath. "White roll, ham, cheddar, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise but go easy, salt and pepper, red peppers, and you got a drizzle of olive oil?" When Frank asked, Logan drizzled a fine line of olive oil over the bread instead of answering. "Great. And can I just take one slice of ham by itself?"
Logan handed the ham over to Frank, who went to the door and tossed it to his dog. The pitpull snapped up the ham quicker than Pietro had left the room and immediately stopped whining. The pleased, pitbull grin returned to the dog's face when Frank got back inside.
"Bad habit," Logan said.
"Huh?"
"Giving into demands."
The Punisher snorted. "You telling me you don't give your rat-looking dog anything? No cheese, no ham, nothing?"
Well, Logan might have 'accidently' dropped his cup of coffee earlier when he realised it tasted like vanilla chai, and Mary had definitely had some before it mixed with the general pavement water and slumped its way into the nearby drain. He wasn't sure if that counted, but Wade spraying canned whipped cream onto the floor so that she could have some probably did.
Logan shook his head.
"Never?" Frank asked.
This time Logan nodded.
"You're more cold hearted than I thought."
Logan, against his better wishes, laughed. It was a short bark of a laugh, but Frank noticed it nonetheless. Then, Frank turned more serious than he had been already.
"Look, I was bringing up that guy earlier because I wanted you and Deadpool to keep an eye on it, especially since you know everyone."
"Unwillingly."
"The point is," Frank stressed, "I don't trust the new team, especially since that politician has done a one-eighty on his policies since meeting them."
"Who's on this new team?" Logan asked slowly.
"I only know their dumb hero names." Frank looked out at the street, where Max was watching traffic. When Frank turned back, Logan made a 'go on' motion with his hand. "The group has been coined the New Order by the media, consisting of someone called Black Cat, a guy going by 'Big Wheel' of all things, a known alien called the Silver Surfer, and Lizard-Man."
Logan squinted. He could feel that his lips had parted with a question, but he had so many that he wasn't sure which one to bring up first. His eyes flickered to the dog and saw it watching him, smiling at him, and Logan suddenly asked, "Cat-Woman?"
"Black Cat," Frank stated. "Apparently she's a cat burglar, got in some flirty fights with one of the Spider-Men but has some kind of X-Gene which affects luck, or at the very least makes her seem luckier."
Like black Spider-Man, Logan felt a bit weird calling her Black Cat, and wondered if she had an equivalent simply called 'Cat', or perhaps an opposite called 'White Cat'. If she was messing around with one of the Spider-Men, then there was a chance, right?
"The second one I mentioned is called Big Wheel. He's a total loser. Seems like the kind of guy to talk about his traumatic experiences as bragging rights rather than as something he should speak to a professional about." Frank sniffed. "Not even that big."
"No?"
"No. Maybe the same size as that one guy in the Fantastic Four. The Thing."
"If you tell the Thing about it then maybe he'll be willing to lend a hand."
Frank snorted. "Yeah. And maybe if I ask the Avengers for help, they won't blow anything up this time."
"The Silver Surfer..."
Logan trailed off. Frank shrugged, Logan shrugged. They both kind of nodded at one another in understanding and then moved on. The Silver Surfer was the Silver Surfer. It was in the name, though his acting on the side of heroes was strange. He seemed pretty interested in wiping the Human Torch off the face of the planet, from what Logan had seen in archived footage from 2007, but since the Silver Surfer had kind of succeeded, maybe he decided to calm down and change sides.
"And Lizard-Man?"
"Crawls on walls, has amazing strength and balance, some kind of power which lets him sense danger and get out of the way, and eats like each meal is going to be his last."
Logan stared at Frank in silence. From the kitchen Pietro said, "Sounds gross."
"Alright." Logan adjusted how he was standing. "Fine. If I see any of our usual suspects I'll talk to them. See if they have any information. If I see these new kids on the block, I'll ask carefully about what they're up to."
Frank nodded and put a ten dollar bill on the counter.
"What's that for?" Logan asked.
"For the sandwich."
"Huh?" Looking around, the sandwich was gone. "How the hell-"
Outside, the grey pitbull wagged its tail-less behind and ate the sandwich in three bites.
*
Logan took the stairs to the apartment two at a time, the bags of shopping light enough to withstand the treatment but heavy enough to bounce. Ever since swapping to tote bags, Logan felt less like a grouchy lumberjack and more like a grouchy hipster. The line between the two was thin at times. The hurry was warranted, though, since the ice cream had started to melt before he had boarded the subway, and after getting off the train the blistering early spring sunlight hadn't helped anything. He could almost feel the sweat dripping off the carton of Stark Raving Hazelnuts Ben and Jerry's he'd picked up especially for Wade, only because Wade ate it furiously, angry that a man he thought was dead was actually wandering around New York like nothing had happened. Because, at least in this New York, nothing had happened.
He was in such a hurry that he almost didn't notice the paper bag left in front of his doorstep. He did notice it, however, when he kicked it and it said, "Ow!"
Logan looked down. The bag had been crinkled closed so he couldn't see inside, but there was a suspicious red fluid leaking out the bottom of the bag.
"One sec," Logan said, jingling his keys. Mary started barking inside. "I gotta put these down and then I'll grab you."
"Yeah you—“ A few huffs of breath came from the bag. "—better."
Logan kicked the door open and used one leg to block Mary as she made a bid for freedom, and he leaned down at the same time to pick up the bag left on the doorstep. There was a wet, bloody mark left beneath the bag, but Logan just kicked their Twilight Sparkle-themed doormat over it and left it to soak into the fabric, and then brought the bag and his shopping inside. The tub of Stark Raving Hazelnuts slapped against his flank when Mary jumped up Logan's legs, and he kicked the door closed behind him. Logan let the paper bag rest on the floor, giving Mary a scratch on the chin, and then went to put the groceries away.
First went the ice cream, then the various meat products, and finally the instant noodles Wade insisted were for an emergency but actually ate for breakfast. Logan then went and retrieved the paper bag from where Mary was sniffing at it and dumped the contents out into the kitchen sink. Wade's masked head, as well as a lot of coagulated blood, thumped into the sink.
"Hey sugartits," Wade said, out of breath. "Boy am I— glad to see you."
"What happened?" Logan asked and turned on the tap. He waited until the water was warm before pulling Wade's mask off and began to gently wash the flaking blood from his face, where it had pooled on his lips and in the hollows of his eyes. When he lathered his hands in soap, Wade responded.
“Some lady in a black catsuit. I swear my swords turned to rubber and there was a cartoonish ‘Donk’ sound when an anvil dropped down from the ceiling on a rope. That usually only happens when Domino is with me. You remember Domino?"
Logan nodded. He remembered Domino, and the constant sound of car crashes happening around her whenever she flipped a water bottle and made it land on its cap. Luck, she had said, was less random for some of them than it was for others.
It would take a while for Wade to grow back into his usual self. It took, on average, a couple of hours for him to fully regrow a hand or six hours for him to repair more difficult parts of his body, like if he had been disemboweled. Everything from the neck downwards, though, would probably be more like twelve to eighteen hours if he focused on healing instead of talking. Logan wasn't sure how Wade was drawing breath, let alone how he was finding the energy to talk.
"And then," Wade continued, "there was a guy in a big wheel who was fighting Spider-Man — the one in the black suit — whose treads on the wheels were really sharp. Needless to say, I went 'Ark!' and boom, it was my head and Spider-Man against the lady and the guy in a stupid costume."
Logan pulled Wade's head out of the sink and rested it on the draining board. "Who dropped you off?"
"Spider-Man. The oldest one in their little quartet. Spider-Man in the black costume was too busy screaming and had to call for backup."
Logan nodded slowly. "Alright. What are you going to do now, then? Once you're not a talking head."
Wade sniffed. "Good band."
"Wade."
"Ugh, fine. I'm going to talk to Domino, since she's really popular right now. Five hundred and eighty stories on the Archive, wow. Not as many as me or you, peanut, but I think it's because they like pairing two beautiful men together rather than craft another straight relationship between two beautiful people. Talk about overdone."
Wade rambled on as Logan dried his head with the dish cloth and then brought them over to the couch. When Mary leapt up onto the couch with them, Wade made kissy noises at her and laughed when she licked his bald head.
"What were you fighting them for?" Logan asked.
"Ugh, turf." Wade pointedly stared at the TV until Logan turned it on, but he left the volume low. "You know how people are. Dumb Demon in Hell's Kitchen, Spider-Man one-through-three in Queens, The one-armed bandit and the walking flag in Brooklyn, and black Spider-Man on the upper east side. Hell, even Iron Man's put a sort of claim on everything south of Central Park, even though he's supposed to be dead. It's just you and me up here in the Bronx. The wheels guy and the lady wanted their share of Harlem, but I think they're trying for any section they can get. Some guy with awful CGI said they tried Chinatown, and then Soho a little while after, but what they lack in good CGI they make up for in power, I guess."
Logan had no idea which superhero might be operating in Chinatown of all places, but he could assume it was one which had been brought in to sell American movies to China. Good for them. If Logan could get a slice of that pie, he wouldn't hesitate. As for Soho...
"Are you sure it's not the Fantastic Three operating in Soho?" he asked. "It's lower Manhattan. Not unheard of for them."
Wade scrunched his lips up and thought about it, accidentally making a kissy face at Mary and then had to suffer through dog kisses. On the TV, the people who were thinking about moving to Mexico for better house prices and nicer weather were upset at there being so many Mexicans, and the host-slash-real estate agent looked like she wanted to reach over and strangle the guests.
"Four again," Wade said all of a sudden.
"Huh?"
"Johnny Storm is back on the scene, but he's from a different one. Ugh. Not the ones which came out in like 2006 or whenever but the newer one."
Logan tried to remember if he'd seen some guy who looked like Chris Evans from the early 2000s on the TV, who was also able to catch fire, but couldn't place it. "How old is he?" he asked.
"Like thirty five? Nineteen? Twenty seven? He’s like Michael Jordan if he could catch fire"
Yeah, Logan definitely hadn't seen him around. He grunted and changed the channel.
*
As Logan promised, he kept an eye out for newcomers in the bodega and tried to stick to his New Year's resolution, which was to drink less. He walked Mary twice a day, which was once at midday when he woke up, and once in the evening before he went to work. Wade, who also 'worked' nights tended to get home earlier than Logan and took on the morning walk with the dog, which tended to be at around eleven AM.
They ate high protein meals together in the afternoons, got coffee every Wednesday and Sunday, and tried once a week to speak to someone who wasn't a customer (Logan), a mark (Wade), Mary, or each other. They only sometimes succeeded.
The short February days turned into short February nights, which only felt short in comparison to how long they were before, until it was the middle of March and the Punisher was standing at the counter in the bodega, listening with a stony expression as Pietro explained his new hobby: throwing tennis balls out of his apartment window and then racing downstairs to catch them.
"Eighty-five percent success rate... Well, maybe eighty. Seventy-seven at least. I got nine in a row last week."
"What time did you say Logan started?"
"Nine. Nine! Nine in a row is crazy."
"Kid."
The clock struck nine. Logan finished his cigarette, scratched the Punisher’s obscenely friendly pitbull beneath its chin, and came inside.
"What?" Logan asked, or demanded. He wasn't trying to be rude but he hadn't had a drink in at least four hours. When he said he was drinking less, he meant that he didn't carry around a flask for the hourly top ups he used to have.
"Logan," the Punisher turned. "Heard anything new?"
"No." Logan thought about it as he took off his scarf. "There's a new member of the Fantastic Four."
"Yeah, another Johnny Storm. Pretty much everyone thinks that he's been there forever but he sure as shit wasn't there before Christmas."
"Dude," Pietro protested, "the Fantastic Four is one of the oldest superhero families out there. It's older than the Avengers. You'd notice if he hadn't been there the whole time."
"The Fantastic Four made themselves a name in 2006, right?" Frank asked, and Pietro nodded. "And the Human Torch is nineteen." Pietro nodded again. "So he was doing caped shit since he was five?"
Pietro seemed to think about it, got a crease between his brows, and then looked away. "Huh."
"Yeah, 'huh'." Logan went into the back room to put his coat down and continued to shout-speak at them. "That's about all, though. Wade and black Spider-Man had a confrontation with the wheel guy and the cat lady, but that was a few weeks ago. Haven't heard from them since. They're looking for new territory, right?"
Frank waited until Logan reached the counter before responding. "Yeah. I heard they settled in Hoboken."
"Across the river?" Frank nodded, but Logan knew the answer already. "Damn. They're not a part of the New York cape scene then."
"They're trying. Lizard-Man is pretty much always in Manhattan and the Silver Surfer is getting into shit with Iron Man, doing ollies off his tower and whatnot, but the wheel's been quiet."
"And Black Cat?"
Frank squinted. "That's what I was going to ask you about. I heard through the grapevine that she's looking for a supposed information hub, somewhere that capes go to talk, but she's not having much luck." Frank looked away, but Logan got the message.
"Anyone with a head on their shoulders wouldn't be going to that information hub unless they really had to, seeing as there might be some kind of psycho dressed as a cat following them around."
"Yeah, unless they really had to."
Pietro looked between them and slid off his stool, and then went to turn the sign on the door to 'closed'. It wouldn't stop anyone who really wanted to get in, but it was the first line of defense. Logan pulled up the hatch which separated the sandwich making area from the rest of the shop and gestured for Frank to follow him, which he did, and then all three of them were in the kitchen: the innermost room in the building. If Daredevil was outside then he might have heard them, but everyone else would find it difficult.
"She knows you exist," Frank said. "This whole territory thing was partly about wanting to know where you are, but also about wanting to be close to you for when they do their thing, whatever it is. Jessica Jones managed to get it out of Lizard-Man when she threatened to break all of his fingers."
Logan nodded slowly. "What do you expect me to do about this, then?"
"That's the thing. Apparently Black Cat is their leader but it's not really known what they're doing or why. She knows about you, knows about your powers and that you're kind of the unofficial mascot when it comes to the genre of person which is 'guy who knows about superheros', but given how Lizard-Man and the Silver Surfer have mobility down, and that Black Cat and Big Wheel are uncommon sights at best, no-one can really get a hold of them to see what they want. It's like knowing there's a rat in the walls but not knowing how it got in or why it's staying."
“And the politician?”
“Same as before. Slowly going back on his policies about enhanced people being people. It’s getting sticky, though. He’s got the power to influence people, but not to outright change policy alone. He’s looking for voting power.”
"If you..." Pietro's voice was loud in the kitchen and then he trailed off, winced, and started again. "Logan, if you were kidnapped or whatever, who would come get you?"
Logan responded immediately. "Wade." He thought for a second longer. "There isn't much which can contain me."
"It's not mind control though, right?" Pietro asked Frank this time. "After last time..."
Last time when Pietro had been kidnapped, along with a bunch of other children below the age of twenty. After the bad guy of the day had only been found and killed because of Logan's very particular set of enhancements and dumb luck. And a dumb super villain. The super villain of the day had been so stupid that she hadn't even realised Logan wasn't under her spell until she had three knives the size of your average dachshund poking through her abdomen.
"If they're after me and they're using mind control, they're going to be disappointed. If they're after me and they get you, I'll figure it out like last time."
Pietro didn't seem pleased, but he calmed down.
Frank opened his mouth to speak and the front door opened with a squeak, along with the chime that always happened when the door opened, and then a cool wave of cold came through when the door slipped closed.
"We're closed," Pietro called.
Shoes, ones which clacked against the tile like an approaching predator, approached the counter.
"I'm looking for a Mr. Logan Hawthorn," a sensual voice which was clearly trying too hard said, purring Logan's fake name.
Piero hopped off the counter and went into the front of the shop, leaving Frank and Logan to stand there, watching the door with equal expressions of hatred. Neither of them spoke.
"He isn't here, and we're closed."
"This place is 24-hours."
"We're closed for cleaning."
There was a slight pause. "What's your name?" the woman asked. The voice was definitely feminine.
"Lady, we're closed. Please leave."
"Aww, honey. I can't even get a little service in this place? You're the one who left the door unlocked."
Frank leaned over and whispered, voice so soft it was like a breeze, "Black Cat."
Logan nodded very slightly. He wanted to go out there and give her a brand-new belly piercing or three but if she was there looking for him, all it meant was bad news. Pietro had dealt with the worst humanity had to offer: unwieldy drunks and business people, the homeless and the meth heads, and worst of all, the twenty-to-sixty year old women who wanted to speak to the manager, and he knew how to stay out of trouble and above board when the customers decided to be assholes, but Logan still wished he could do something. Pietro was far more professional than Logan.
"You want a sandwich?" Pietro asked with a sigh.
"I want to speak to Logan."
"You can either have a sandwich or leave."
There was a small silence, in which Logan could imagine the woman squinting at Pietro and sizing him up, before there was a squeal of metal, a surprised noise from Pietro, and then a crash as the door to the kitchen was knocked inwards, followed by the white froth spray of a fire extinguisher sailing past Logan's head. It crashed into the back door and knocked it open, narrowly missing Daredevil who was loitering in the street, and then collided with a thunderous bang into the brick wall of the alley. Frank had stepped back, and his face was frozen in comical shock. Logan looked and, sure enough, there was Black Cat in her stupid jumpsuit which left nothing to the imagination. It was like it had been painted on to her, showing off the hips Logan never wanted to see and the little claws on the ends of her hands which made her look silly. What kind of loser put a manicure on top of their gloves?
"Mr Hawthorn," she purred.
"I'm on break," he said. "If you want a sandwich along with your vandalism, talk to Pietro."
Frank stayed quiet. From where he was standing, he wouldn't be able to see Black Cat and her stilettos from hell, but she wouldn't be able to see him either. If good and bad luck were what she specialised in, there was no end to the chaos she could cause.
"I want to talk to you specifically."
Logan raised an eyebrow. "I'm on break."
She tossed a long lock of white-blonde hair over her shoulder and gave him a coy look from behind her black domino mask. It was hard to tell if she had eyebrows or not. Logan turned away from her and pulled the door to the alleyway closed, ignoring how Daredevil was perched up on a roof like a vulture and tilting his head like a chicken, listening to them. The door between the shop and the kitchen was too broken to be closed, seeing as it was laid flat on the floor, but Logan just moved out of her line of sight, hanging out among the boxes of onions and the cans of soda. Frank gave him a questioning, though understanding, look from where he was hidden in the kitchen. Logan made a show of opening a bag of Doritos and making a loud crunch when he bit into one.
"Get out," Pietro said. "I'm calling the cops. Get out."
Logan was way ahead of him. He was already sending a text to a cop he knew he could trust and who wouldn't try and arrest Frank on sight. Mahoney.
Pietro was enhanced, sure, with the X-Gene like many of the best and brightest Logan knew, but he wasn't a fighter. Unlike Logan and his colleagues in the mansion, there was no special close combat training for the students who were younger than eighteen, and it was only for those who asked for the classes who were enrolled. Pietro had never been to the mansion, never really knew other enhanced people until he had met Logan, and didn't really know what to do with his powers anyway.
All this to say, Logan was already angry, and then he heard the unmistakable sound of a fist colliding with flesh. He pushed himself off the wall, turned, and punched with all his force as Black Cat came around the corner.
She ducked.
Frank was inches away and caught the hit in his shoulder, grunting as all two hundred pounds of Logan's metal endoskeleton made contact with him and forced him back into the cabinets. Logan wasn't exactly old fashioned, but he at least hesitated in stabbing a lady as well as giving her a punch like a freight train, so Frank thankfully didn't catch his claws, but Logan was pissed. Black Cat did some kind of flashy acrobatic move and was standing beside Pietro again, but she dodged just as Pietro grabbed one of the razor-sharp metal lids from the sandwich prepping station and swung it at her. Frank, now recovered, positioned himself in the background. Logan pretended not to see his many guns beneath his dodgy trench coat.
Black Cat shot Logan an annoying smirk and cartwheeled towards him. She moved like someone who had never had to try to win a fight, but knew all of the pretend moves they used on TV and in movies, relying on her ability to make believe rather than anything which could do something. Sure enough, as Frank raised a pistol and took aim, one of the ceiling lights fell out and crashed to the floor in a rain of sparks.
"I hate to meet like this," she said, "but I wanted to introduce myself."
Logan jabbed his claws at her, no longer playing nice, and jammed them straight into the doorframe. He tugged, but they didn't move.
"I'm Black Cat."
"I'm not interested." He wrenched his hand free. "Fuck off."
She leaned to one side and another metal lid went past her. "I'm a big fan of your work."
Logan kicked, hitting the kitchen counter and skidding the whole thing backwards. Unlike the kitchens in a house, it wasn't bolted to the wall and had shelves at face height full of plastic tubs and knives, which, when the whole thing rocked, went crashing to the floor. One of her stupid stiletto heels landed on a plastic lid and she slipped, just in time for a bullet to go over her head and sink into Logan's shoulder. Down low, she kicked at Logan's knee and sent him backwards into the door frame, but he was still standing. She, for some reason, seemed surprised by that.
Pietro had run out of metal lids and was throwing sliced tomatoes at her. One landed on the exposed skin of her collar bone and sunk red juice into the white ruff around her unitard. Logan glanced at it and she smirked, but this time, Logan was smiling back. He kicked one of the metal lids by their feet when she took a step and it knocked against her shoe, and the distraction was just enough for Pietro to nail her in the face with another slide of tomato. She grunted, reaching up with her fake manicure to pick it off, when Logan kicked and sent her falling backwards, the back of her head hitting Frank in the nuts. He grunted and folded inwards, falling against the door to the alleyway, but with her pressed against his chest he was able to grab her and stop her from getting back up, and she hissed.
"Lady," Logan snapped, "Enough."
She went still and blinked slowly at him. "Hmm?"
"Why are you here?"
"Just to talk."
"'Just to talk', my ass," Frank muttered.
"Talk," Logan demanded.
She drew her legs up close to her body and gave Logan a simpering look which he'd give a two out of ten for effort. She said, "I've heard you're immortal."
Logan raised an eyebrow. "And?"
The simpering look was replaced with a glower. Logan gave it a four out of ten. "Our crew could use more people. Lizard-Man isn't about killing but the rest of us don't mind it so much." She lowered her voice. "It's an unusual trait in a man."
Frank snorted.
"You got anything to do with that guy? The politician?"
"A little," she giggled.
Logan squinted. Pietro was probably squinting as he readied another tomato to throw. Frank was outright scowling at the false ceiling above his head, probably waiting for something awful to happen.
Daredevil fell through the roof of the bodega in a shower of dust and rat residue. A rat even fell with him, which scampered off towards the door and began to paw at the glass, but Daredevil himself was mostly shocked. Black Cat blinked at him a few times before asking, "Anyone else going to drop in unannounced?"
"Just you and him, I think," Logan stated. "Now, do you have any other information before I confirm your suspicions about me being the killing type?"
There was silence. Pietro threw a tomato at Daredevil.
"Huh?" she asked.
"Do you have anything else to say before I kill you?" Logan repeated.
Aghast, Black Cat stated, "That's not how this works!" Logan raised an eyebrow and she continued. "That's not— this is— the pace is way off! No one is supposed to die perminently here. You're supposed to be flirting back and showing off your arms, and wearing bright yellow instead of being, you know." She tried to gesture but Frank held her solid. "Normal."
Logan dropped his shoulders. "Lady, I'm retired from that."
"Well, I haven't," she stated. "If a panel doesn't have dialogue then it's got some kind of onomatopoeic writing like 'thud' or 'blam'! These long silences of yours don't belong here."
Frank seemed to catch on.
Logan said slowly, "I dunno who you are or how you're here, but if you're not supposed to be here then that's your problem."
"You're not supposed to be here either," Daredevil said, unhelpful as always.
Pietro, silent, just looked between them all.
"I'm retired," Logan stated.
Black Cat squared her shoulders. A panel in the false ceiling fell and hit Frank on the forehead, knocking him unconscious in a way which would have killed a normal person but didn’t because of Black Cat's comic-slash-cartoon logic, and she stood up like a proud member of the ridiculous outfit club. She put her hands on her hips, tossed her head so that her totally impractical hair was tossed over one shoulder, and gave Logan a look which might have killed him if he wasn't immortal and they were working off comic book logic.
"See you later," she said, wiggled her fingers, and somersaulted out of the back door. Then she went 'clack, clack, clack'ing down the street with her immeasurably high shoes on.
"That explains why she was so sexualised, at least," Daredevil muttered.
"And so good at fighting, even if her stance was wrong," Logan agreed.
"Sorry, uh." Pietro pointed between the four of them, then at the open door to the back. "Can someone explain?"
"She's from a comic or a cartoon or something, Frank and Daredevil are from TV shows-"
Daredevil grinned. "Aged eighteen plus."
"And I'm from movies. Was from the movies." Logan winced. "Kind of in text format only, for now."
Daredevil perked up. "You're from a book?"
Logan winced harder. "Not exactly."
Daredevil paused to debate all the different ways that someone could write about the Wolverine but didn't seem to land on a format he liked best, when Pietro pointed at Logan. "I don't know what that means."
"You know that theory of, like, in a different universe you could be a doctor, or a nurse, or the Doctor from Doctor Who?"
Pietro squinted. He nodded slowly. "Uh-huh."
"Like that. She thinks this is still a comic but it's not. Daredevil and Frank still act like they're in a TV show. Why else would Iron Man be doing superhero landings to people who can't see it? And why else would black Spider-Man walk around at twelve frames per second and then switch into twenty-four when he’s fighting?"
"Okay." His voice was heavy with skepticism, but then Pietro leapt up. "Wait, what am I from?" Logan shrugged. Daredevil didn’t move and Frank remained unconscious, and Pietro’s shoulders slumped. “Whatever.”
“Look,” Logan tried to explain. “Some people come from Fiji, some people come from El Salvador, and some come from Myanmar. And after some weird physicists thought ‘wouldn’t it be cool if I was the Doctor from Doctor Who?’ they decided to believe in the alternate universe theory and that some people could be from comics, or video games, or movies, or whatever. I used to be in a movie but I retired.”
Piero blinked. “So you don’t go ‘blam’ or ‘pow’ or whatever, but you used to do the superhero landing.”
“I used to stand dramatically in empty rooms and flex all my abs.” Logan sighed. “And before that I did the ‘blam, boom, pow’ thing. It was exhausting.”
“I still do that sometimes,” Daredevil chipped in.
“Good for you. Since you’re still here…” Logan tossed a broom to Daredevil. “Help us clean up.”
Daredevil was just about to sneer and backflip the fuck out of there when Frank regained consciousness and drew in a sharp breath.
“Max?” Frank asked, walked outside, and yelled, “Max?”
He whistled. He waved some ham around. He walked around the block a few times, but it was clear from the cut lead and lack of pitbull smiles that Frank’s dog, Max, was gone.