[ He goes back and forth between her apartment, her office, his motel, the diner she pointed out (decent coffee, shitty pancakes), which stays open 24 hours and makes a good enough place to hang out while he keeps an eye out. For a day or so, the men following her seem to give up. Regrouping, he assumes, to figure out how to handle the new piece on the board (him).
Not as if he expected to go unnoticed.
When Karen finishes her day, Logan goes ahead of her. He wants to check if anybody's lurking or tampered with her place. These guys that disappeared, he doesn't know where the hell they got to but he doesn't like it. They're up to something. He's got a hand on her door, glancing over his shoulder. She was only, what, a block away? Little more? Shouldn't take her long to come around the corner. She doesn't. He takes a step back, then another. A thump echoes, faint but audible.
Shit. ]
Karen! [ He sprints down the street. The thing is, he doesn't know what they want with her—if they're looking to scare her, kidnap her, or shut her up for good, but none of that matters right now. ] Karen!
[ He crashes through the stairwell in a cloud of dust and splintered wood. Someone's kneecap crunches beneath the sheer weight of his landing. His claws tear through flesh and stone alike. Honestly? He's not thinking, just reacting. They're trying to get to her; that means he needs to get to them first, and that's exactly what he does. Shots ring between the walls. He covers her—and if he eats a few bullets in his back (goddamn it), better him than her.
He grabs her arm. No way these assholes came just the three of them. He's not sticking around for when the rest show up, not with her under his watch. ] Get up, let's go.
[ in the chaos she doesn't hear him coming, doesn't even think to call out for him. she's been here before, or at least in similar enough situations, knows not to hope someone will show up because when they don't, she'll be left with nothing. so instead she just fights- or fights however much she can, kicking out with her legs and flailing and screaming. hands grip at her, holding her down against the stairs while they try and restrain her legs, and all karen can do is try and push back. to get out.
they're grabbing for her, but they don't seem to want to kill her - which, when she has the time to think about it, is different than before. before, they'd tried to kill her, to make it look like an accident, but now...
now, they're trying to take her somewhere. or get something from her. and she can't- she can't let that happen.
as soon as the thought hits her, something comes crashing through the wall. and when she says crashing she does mean crashing - bursting through in a shower of dust and splinters. she hears gunshots, hears someone yelling, but that's about it because her focus is on the loosened grip and the fact she suddenly has an ankle free, and the chance to land a kick directly under her assailant's jaw. he moves, then gets stabbed from the side, and Karen is scrambling to try and stand when a hand grabs her arm. get up- ]
L-Logan? [ he's covered in dust and grime, blood too, though it doesn't look like his, and there are- ah.
there are the claws.
she lets him pull her to her feet, shaking a little and feeling bruised, but otherwise okay. which is more than she can say for the three bodies littered amongst what remains of the wall. ] Did you- [ does she need to ask? she takes an unsteady breath, adrenaline and a bit of pain keeping her upright, even as she shakes a bit, clutching her bag to her chest. ] Yeah- okay, yeah. [ she'll follow him out, though her instinct is to head back down the street, to run and make it the rest of the way to her actual building, but she'll follow logan if he says otherwise. ]
[ He's got a steadying grip on her, just in case, as he listens for more footsteps. Maybe they've retreated—scared off by their dead friends—but that's not something he wants to gamble on by overstaying his welcome.
He snatches a thumb drive off the ground. Probably tumbled out of her bag, he isn't sure, doesn't stop to think about it as he hurries alongside her. They duck around some alleyways but he's on the same page: get her back home, figure it out from there. The thing is, her apartment's chock full of those fucking files. Something tells him if they abandon ship, all of that's going up in flames.
He goes up the steps first. When opening the door doesn't blast him to pieces, he tips his head for her to come on up. ]
You okay? [ He closes the blinds, then pushes her couch away from the window. There's blood on his hands, bullet holes in his jacket (what else is new?), and a single misshapen .45 that plinks belatedly onto her floor. He doesn't seem to notice. ] Look—at least two of them are still out there, and more are coming. You need to stay put for a few days.
[ That means no libraries, no archives, definitely no interviews on little side streets. He can keep her safe, but not if she's running around the city.
[ she’s grateful for the steadying hand, feeling mostly held up by that grip as they head out of the bottom floor hall and back into the street. she’s more focused on getting out of there, on whether or not there are more of them waiting outside to see what catches logan’s attention for that moment.
karen and logan take a few back alleys and slip between buildings before they make it back to her’s, waiting for the go ahead before she actually follows him inside. he goes to the windows, and karen triple locks her door, dropping her bag and setting her pistol on the table near the door - finally, actually, letting herself breathe.
logan is still moving - closing the blinds, pushing her couch from the door, and karen just sort of watches him. combs her fingers back through her hair as she forces herself to breathe more slowly. steadily.
when she steps into the living space, she takes a seat in the chair furthest from the window, touching at a cut at the crown of her forehead and wincing. ]
They were trying to kidnap me. [ she says after a second, looking over to him. he says two more are still out there and more are coming and karen frowns. ] They haven’t done that before. Something’s changed. If I found something-
[ logan holds out the thumb drive and karen blinks, part of her wondering if he was even listening, but a larger part of her distracted by the unfamiliar thumb drive.
she takes it from him, turning it over in her hands. ]
I’ve never seen this before. [ her eyes go from the drive, to him, and then she’s standing - planning to go get her laptop from her bag. ] Where did you find it?
[ Funny; Logan's thinking she's not listening to him, either. Can't blame the woman.
His gaze drifts to the cut on her forehead. Has half a mind to offer her a Kleenex or something when she's already up and moving. Logan perches on the couch's armrest across from her chair. ]
On the steps. Thought it was yours.
[ If it's not hers, whose? What the hell are a bunch of goons doing with a drive if their only job was to kidnap her? Assuming that was their only job, which at this point, he isn't fucking sure what's going on. (Was he ever?)
Fantastic.
He folds his arms over his chest. Starts to ask whether bunkering down is the best choice or if he oughta move her after all. To where, is the question. He doesn't exactly have a safe house lying in wait. How long before they send more than a couple of guys?
He watches her flip her laptop open. ] If they were trying to take you, it means you've got something they want.
[ she shakes her head as she walks, grabbing her laptop and returning to the chair she'd been sitting in, specifically away from the windows. the cut remains ignored as she waits for her computer to boot up. ]
Not mine. A lot of computers don't even work with these anymore. Most people need an adapter to... [ her thought trails off as she sticks it into her obviously older laptop, her knee starting to tap impatiently as she tries to pull it up.
the truth is, she hasn't ever seen this before, but that doesn't mean she wasn't carrying it around. the last interviews she had, the people she spoke with, there was an overall feeling that they knew what they were doing, and how dangerous it could be. could this be someone else's? could they have slipped it into her bag as she left? it seems more likely than one of her attackers just carrying it with them to kidnap her, but...
karen's focus is very obviously moved on, despite the way she is still trembling slightly from the whole ordeal. this, at least, is something she can do. something that might lead to answers, or maybe a lead. she clicks through a few times on her computer, tries to pull up the drive. the adrenaline is pushing her forward, towards something to find, until a screen pops up that makes her curse.
she all but drops the computer down on the coffee table between them - frustrated by what she found. ]
It's encrypted. Without a password, I can't get in. [ unfortunately for them both, her technological skills don't extend to breaking through firewalls. give her a database and enough keywords and she can find just about anything. but this?
she looks over to logan - lost as far as what to do next. ]
[ They what? Logan squints at the drive, thinking that can't possibly be true—but hell, he's still buying CDs and types with two fingers, so he's not the one to argue. Definitely not the one to un-encrypt a damn thing.
He peers over her shoulder, at the screen demanding a password. The box is blank. No logo, no indication of what it's even supposed to unlock. Could be anything from a distraction to a trap.
Shit.
Of course this was gonna get complicated. He knew that, didn't he? Going in? Government outfits and secret experiments that go back decades—yeah, a bunch of secret locked files is the first thing he should've expected. ]
I might know a guy, I'll make a call. [ A beat. ] Lemme look at you, you okay?
[ Not as bad as it could've been, but she's still pretty banged up. He doesn't like how easily they caught up to her. Should've stuck closer. What the hell does she have that they want? It can't be that drive, can it? She didn't even know she was carrying the thing. ]
[ what bothers her the most is that she's still not sure yet how this all adds up. before now it had been fairly cut and dry - she was digging into a story, a case, and it was pissing some important people off. attempts at her life had been made, more than once, and each time it was subtle and it was elegant and it was highly orchestrated. but this is different, and there are too many questions. for one, how did the drive get there in the first place? what is it she supposedly has that is valuable enough for them to try and grab her in broad daylight? in public? what would have happened to her if logan hadn't been there?
karen's distracted as her mind plays through a variety of scenarios, biting on her fingernails absentmindedly until logan's voice cuts through her thoughts.
of course he knows a guy. really, who is karen even kidding? she's talking to logan. the wolverine. who was sent by charles xavier. the resources of the xmen have to be so that they can crack a passwords protected thumb drive, considering they've survived the way they have - with the way they've been targeted as enemies of the state as often as they have...
part of her feels almost embarrassed for even trying.
but then there's the beat, and the second part, and she blinks - confused. look at her? then she remembers the throbbing at her temple, and her eyes go up - as if looking up to her forehead - before she exhales. ] Oh, yeah. I'm okay. I mean... I'll probably wake up with a few bruises, but you got there before they could really do anything.
Yeah, well. [ His expression darkens. ] Not fast enough.
[ Some of them got away, too. He's not happy about that, and it shows, but he's not about to run off after them, either. Not 'til he knows more about what's going on. Much as he hates to admit it, if this is an active government program, he isn't sure how much he can do. It's a matter of being realistic. Charles wants to believe they can negotiate their way into Congress, Magneto thinks they gotta blow the whole thing up, and Logan?
Logan's not the guy who can guess which one's got a better chance of working. He just knows Charles' plans usually come with fewer bodies and fewer mutant kids dragged into some senseless war. That's good enough for him. But sometimes, he's gotta wonder what's gonna be good enough for this world.
Anyway, the Professor thinks this story breaking is important. So that's what Logan's sticking to.
He takes her pistol off the table and holds it out. ] Get some sleep. You need anything, just shout, I'll be...here.
[ Out there. Somewhere. It's fine. He barely sleeps, he can hang around on her roof or something. ]
[ his expression darkens, and karen feels herself soften - recognizing that there's something else there, something that he's keeping tucked away, and karen can't help the way she softens a little under that look.
whatever this is... karen knows this feeling. she recognizes the drop from under her feet, the pressure bearing down on her every single stone she turns over. she knows this is bigger than her, but watching the weight settle on logan's shoulders makes it feel all that much worse.
she doesn't know what he's thinking about, don't know what he's considering or the lives he's lived outside of her apartment. she's read what she could find, has heard whispers and rumors and knows the stories of the wolverine, but she has very little information on the rest of it. on logan, who is a puzzle, who looks at her forehead and who darkens around not soon enough and who reminds her, so suddenly and wholly, of frank castle that something in her chest curls over itself.
he holds out her the pistol, and says get some sleep and karen's brow furrows, something like panic swelling in her chest. ] Logan- [ she does reach out, but her hand goes to his wrist - not tight, just setting her hand on his forearm. ] Stay. [ the words leave her before she realizes what's happening, but that doesn't make them any less true. ] Just....tonight, at least. I don't- if they come here, I don't know what I'd do. [ and then, when karen realizes she's basically squeezing his wrist, she lets go - taking the gun from him. ]
[ Somehow, he doesn't expect that, her asking him to stay; might be it's 'cause so few people want him to, or they don't believe that he will, or hell, maybe the reality is, Logan's spent a long time convincing himself that even when they ask, they don't mean it. They don't know him well enough to mean it because if they did, they wouldn't have asked.
He can't tell himself the same right now, not with the way Karen's looking at him with something close to dread in her eyes. He stops short, watching her. You don't want me here and I'll be right outside, promise flickers through his head. He doesn't say any of it. Something about her—something about the way she's not even bothering to hide how goddamn scared she is makes him pause. He's not sure what it means that she trusts him in her apartment after they've, what, exchanged two whole conversations? It's not that he thinks he's no good at protecting her—he knows he can, that he did and will again—but it's more, the idea of it. That him being inside her home instead of a couple steps away outside makes a difference to her.
He nods, then shrugs off his jacket. He can plant himself on her couch. Probably try not to pass out and poke any holes in it.
He digs out a cigar, holding it up. ] You mind, then?
[ she catches him off-guard with that, and she thinks she understands why. they barely know each other, she barely knows him, and yet here she is. inviting him to stay the night in her apartment, with her, without...what? proof? all that she knows of logan is that he was sent by charles xavier, is the wolverine, is there to protect her, and he...
he completely destroyed the bottom floor of a building down the street. he killed multiple people, possible government officials, to keep her safe. he's still splattered with blood, even now, and Karen...
god, she's doing this again, isn't she? because yes, they barely spoke, they don't know each other, but- god, her heart has barely stopped racing, and the idea of trying to go to sleep, asleep in this apartment? it's not going to happen. so in that moment, in that pause, she almost wonders if he's going to say no. and then what will she do? where will she-
he nods, and Karen lets out a long, shaky breath - relieved more by that one gesture than she has in a long time. she checks the pistol's safety and stands, tucking it into another drawer. you mind? when karen looks go over and sees the cigar, she takes all of half a second to consider it (technically it's not permitted, technically she could lose her security deposit, technically...)
she shrugs. ] Open a window, but go ahead. [ she tugs her hair back, pulling a ponytail from around her wrist, and heads back over to the kitchen. she is going to need to take a shower, she's going to need to cancel her interviews tomorrow, and god- she's going to probably need to tell matt and foggy about what happened, but-
karen walks over to the sink and starts washing her hands. ] You want a drink?
[ Yeah, he can do that. Logan cracks open one of the windows, though not before he scans the street below. Greasy puddles shine orange. Nobody's called the cops over the mess he made down the block. Sounds about right for this neighborhood. Probably at least a few more hours before anybody actually sees the bodies—if they haven't been cleaned up already by folks who don't want this shit in the news.
He turns around when she speaks. ] Keep this up, I'm gonna have to replenish your stash.
[ In other words: he'll take a drink. He joins her by the kitchen island. The blood's flaking off on his hands. He scrubs them, too, before he stains her furniture. His clothes, he'll deal with that later—but stripping off his outer layer solves most of the problem. There's not a scratch on him, even if some of the blood's definitely his, judging by a couple of very obvious bullet holes in his undershirt.
He studies her for a bit through a cloud of smoke, juggling half-assed sentiments of comfort that he's pretty sure she doesn't need before he settles on: ] You want something to eat?
[ Kinda feels like she could use a pizza or something with her liquor. Besides, she might as well use him to answer the door while he's around. ]
[ no...no one calls the cops. welcome to hells kitchen, logan. and while Karen is still a bit shaken up, still just sort of holding herself together, she also doesn't appear to be... well. she's not totally lost in the after of all of this.
instead, she washes her hands. she forces herself to breathe a little bit, and then a little bit more. she grabs a rag and presses it to her forehead, winces a little at the sting and heads back over to the fridge, pulls out two beers. ]
I won't say no. [ she says with a small smile, turning and setting the bottles down on the counter, turning to find a bottle opener. she's still searching when he asks about food, and she pauses for a moment, tries to think about the last time she ate a meal. ]
I could eat. [ she closes the cabinet, still no bottle opener, she huffs out a breath. ] Pizza?
He's been eyeing her for the past thirty, forty, seconds, and after she makes another exasperated noise, Logan holds out his hand for the bottle. When she gives it, he sort of just—leverages the cap against her counter until it pops. One of those easy tricks you can do when you're capable of exerting ten times more force than average.
Or whatever it is. He wasn't paying attention last time Hank made his calculations.
He slides the bottle back across the counter. ]
So, what'd you read about me, anyway?
[ Look, he knows the stuff that's floating around out there for most to see, but he's a little curious what a reporter out of the Bulletin might've come across. ]
[ she snorts, nodding and turning to check one more place for the opener when his hand reaches out. her eyes go from his hand to his eyes and, after realizing what he's asking, passes over both bottles of beer.
of course he's the type to be able to just... do that. she watches it and then just kind of snorts, nods and takes one of the bottles. the sip she takes is long, longer than it probably needs to be, but she gives up on caring how she appears right now. ] Okay, Pizza. [ she nods, opening a drawer and pulling out a stack of pamphlets. ] Any preferences?
[ if he doesn't, she's just going to order two (three?) large pizzas anyway, ending the call and setting the phone on the counter, and then taking another long drink. maybe she should have gotten the bottle of liquor, but at the same time...
the question makes her pause, and then she lifts a brow at him. ]
You want to know? [ and it's a little bit of a tease, a smile. so he is curious, then, and Karen doesn't mind the shift in topic. she walks around the kitchen counter and back to the mess that is her living space. ]
Most of what I found refers to you as Weapon X. Or maybe the program is Weapon X? It's unclear, but I started digging a lot into Stryker, when he popped up in those articles I grabbed but... [ she searches through a few files before she pulls one out, flipping through. ] Enhanced healing, grafted adamantium skeleton, heightened senses, superhuman stamina, durability, senses, speed, strength... [ she flips back another page, scanning for anything else interesting before she pauses. ]
[ His answer is a shrug. If she looks to him while she's ordering, he's gonna agree to whatever she's going with while he cracks open his own beer and takes a sip.
He huffs in reply to her teasing. ] Yeah, I wanna know.
[ He can't help it when a swathe of his own life's a damn mystery to him, too. But she doesn't say too much yet that he hasn't gathered by now. Alkali would have those records and charts on him. Probably have a hell of a lot more, too, stored in a freezer somewhere just waiting.
Funny, to see all of that condensed into the file she's got in her hands. ]
Uh— [ He turns to face her, resting his cigar on lid that passes for a makeshift ashtray. ] —looks that way. I remember Nagasaki...some wars before that. This old estate when I was a kid. [ He rolls his thumb between his knuckles. ] Seems nothing ever manages to kill me. Not even time.
[ So much for those life guarantees, huh? But he hasn't gone searching for that magic bullet in a while. Mostly 'cause he's accepted it's not out there, and that leaves him...here. A permanent fixture in a world that's not his and that he ends up running around trying to protect, anyway. ]
[ at his huff, her smile grows - recognizing the exhausted acceptance of it. it's good to know he's a good sport, considering she has no idea how long this is going to go on. this being the threat on her life, which is dark to think about. dark to realize she doesn't know when this might end.
and yet, as each second passes, Karen slowly feels herself getting more and more steady. she's not shaking anymore, either, which is nice. she might event sleep tonight.
she finds the file, repeats the information she's dragged out of page after page after page of research, and logan listens. her forehead wrinkles a bit at his answer, looks that way, and she lets the papers fall closed again. ] One of these ah- reports talked about some of the missions that Weapon X went on after everything. I'd thought for a while that it was a team, you know, one of those covert government assassin groups or something. But then I found something that looked like a list, and they all referred to one Weapon X, so part of me almost thought it was an actual weapon, a robot or something. [ she read them a few weeks back, had been so desperate for information that she hadn't been understanding them. hadn't seen the person, the human being, at the core of all of this. the list of procedures, the reports of survival, from, through, despite-
logan is still sitting at her kitchen table, and Karen feels her shoulders drop when she looks at him now, thinks about the details that she had skimmed through because none of it had really applied to what she was looking for. she'd been looking for kids, for stryker, for something that would help with her story.
this one is something else. and she feels a bit embarrassed about how she doesn't remember all of it. all of his life. she exhales. ] One of the side effects of the things in- [ she gestures with the file, then drops it back down to the table, feeling a little sick with the way some of that was described. ] -stated memory loss. Potential, in the notes, but... you don't remember, do you?
[ His expression flickers. An actual weapon. Yeah, well. She's not all wrong. What difference does it make when it gets the same amount of people dead?
He chuckles, dark. ] Side effect—is that what they call it?
[ Side effect. Of course that's how they wrote it down. Looks clean on the report so the people signing off on it don't feel like they got their hands dirty. A mistake. A calculated risk. Stryker insisted he volunteered, and hell, who says he didn't? God knows it didn't take much to get him to sign up for some kinda fight in those days, but the rest of it? How much of it was just always what he was? He likes to think he could've been better, might've been better. Every time he stays with the X-Men, he can almost believe he is.
Maybe that's why he keeps taking off.
He shifts his weight. Funny. A part of him doesn't wanna get into it, doesn't know what to say, and then there's this other part of him that does. Something about her just feels...easy's not the right word, but he finds himself balking less than he would've elsewhere.
She's still looking at him. ] Professor would say you can't flip through the mind like a book. It used to piss me off, but he's right. I know I killed a lot of people. [ He sets his bottle on the counter. ] I know I'm good at it whether or not somebody's pulling the strings.
[ it makes a difference to her, if only because now there's another story that had been sitting right there, right in those pages, and she'd passed right by it.
but that's for another time. she hasn't even finished this one, these kids, these poor kids, have to have justice. have to have their story out there. and then maybe, after...
she snorts a little at that. shrugs, as she crosses her arms over her chest, rubs at her own arms. ] Among other things. A lot of it's redacted, so I'm sure there's more to it. There usually is. [ karen keeps her eyes on logan, though, watching him... think? process? though something tells her what she's saying isn't new for him, isn't anything he hasn't heard or figured out before. but he's obviously looking for more, for parts of him that were taken, forgotten to history.
she picks up her bottle of beer, moving to take another one of the bar stools next to him. she's content to listen, at this point, though something tells her he's not the yapping type. ]
Trauma tends to get stuck up there, violence too. It's harder to remember the good things when you've got so much bad, but. [ she shrugs. ] From what I've read of Professor Xavier, he would know better than anyone. [ her eyes follow his bottle to the counter, then back to him, considering. I know I'm good at it he says, and yet he looks like that when he says it. ]
Is that why you work with the Professor? To kill people?
[ somewhat of a leading question, but hey, she's not a lawyer. ]
[ Usually. He could ask to see the files. Flip through them. Read between the lines.
He doesn't.
He snorts when she says trauma. It's not—whatever. Sometimes he's got shitty nightmares. He figures you live long enough, that's what happens. He didn't come here to talk about his fucked up years as somebody's science experiment, anyway. He wants answers, yeah. It also feels like every time he looks for them, somebody else is bound to get hurt. This time, it might be her.
He doesn't look at her when she sits next to him, instead leaning back. ] You don't think I'd make a good teacher?
[ He's there 'cause it's either him or the kids, and he'd rather it be him. Half of them are gunning to go on a mission; they think they're old enough. And hell, maybe they are, but they shouldn't have to be. ]
[ the snort is all she really needs to know. whether or not he believes her, or whether or not he's taking any of it seriously. men like him generally don't, from what she's experienced, but she also doesn't know if she can really apply what she knows about other men to someone who's been alive for over a century. who has survived...
you don't think i'd make a good teacher?
now it's karen's turn to snort, and she does - quick, surprising her. does she think he'd make a good teacher? she tilts her head back and forth a little like she's considering it before she grins a little. ]
Honestly? You're probably a favorite with all the teen girls. You give off teacher crush energy. Let me guess... P.E.?
[ they were just talking about killing people, something that she believes him wholeheartedly. but he's also... lost. looking for missing pieces of himself, looking for missing pieces of his life. karen can't help the urge to want to help him, though she's sure all that she has is basic information he's probably figured out by this point. ]
[ This time, he does turn to look at her. His chuckle is wry. ] Oh, yeah? Is that, what, is that based on experience?
[ He's teasing now, too, probably (definitely); maybe he shouldn't, not when she nearly goddamn died on his watch and he'd told her I'm good at killing, and he never answered her question. But she's not walking away from him or making excuses about going to bed. She's here—like it's the most natural fuckin' thing in the world to glide from killing to what kinda teacher he'd be.
A shit one, is the real answer. By the way.
He drains another third of his beer. It's late. She should get some rest. He decides he doesn't mind this, though. He's not much of a sleeper, especially isn't good at it in somebody else's house.
Footsteps register several feet from the door. Logan's already getting up before the knock comes. He opens the door—can smell the pizza, too, through it, and sure enough, the pimple-faced kid's standing there with a stack of boxes. He shoves a fifty into the boys hand. ] Keep the change.
[ the chuckle may be wry, but it's enough. her smile grows just a little bit at it, especially at his question. based on experience? he asks, and karen just sort of shrugs, completely innocent.
its only a few moments later than she breaks, giggling a little bit. she knows there is probably more to that story, knows that when logan doesn't add anything else to the story. but karen doesn't need to know more than that, not right now. maybe not ever. but it wouldn't be the first time.
and yeah, it is late, and it's getting later. karen knows that she's going to hurt tomorrow, more so if she doesn't sleep, but the exhaustion that has hung over her for weeks, that she feels in her bones, it's still there but it's not going to take her to sleep. not yet, at least.
she downs the rest of her beer, is about to stand for more when logan pushes to his feet first. it's an immediate reaction that shoots fear through her chest, freezes her to the spot as she watches him move to her front door. she doesn't take her eyes off him as he moves to the door, her hand reaching - slowly - across the counter to a pair of scissors.
and then she hears it, the exchange, the smell of pizza, the kid dropping the boxes off. karen realizes, very suddenly, how ridiculous she's acting. karen lets go of the scissors, rubs her hands across her face as she exhales, tries to force herself to relax.
yeah, she's not sleeping any time soon.
it's not until logan brings the pizza back over to the counter that karen lets out another breath, rubs at her face again before she stands. ]
Do you want a plate? [ that's not what she's going for, necessarily, but it's a good excuse to get back up into the cabinet, another half bottle of whiskey. ]
[ He can hear her heart pounding, even after he closes the door. She's not safe here—they both know that—but he's working on where she will be safe. Safer, at least.
For now, the best he's got is sticking close.
Logan slides the boxes onto the table. His gaze flicks to the stuff she's got on there, all the little things that tell more about a person than what they say. ]
Nah. [ He's a paper towel kinda guy, which is what he uses to toss a couple slices of pepperoni on. He settles back on the stool. ] Could use some of that, though.
[ He's referring to the whiskey. Which—if she hands it over—he'll take after he checks a message on his phone. He wasn't expecting anybody to answer at this hour, but the little buzz says different. He slips the phone back in his pocket without replying. Part of him still has questions about Matt Murdock. Where the hell did he go? What's he digging up? ]
Those guys that came after you—were they the same ones following you?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Not as if he expected to go unnoticed.
When Karen finishes her day, Logan goes ahead of her. He wants to check if anybody's lurking or tampered with her place. These guys that disappeared, he doesn't know where the hell they got to but he doesn't like it. They're up to something. He's got a hand on her door, glancing over his shoulder. She was only, what, a block away? Little more? Shouldn't take her long to come around the corner. She doesn't. He takes a step back, then another. A thump echoes, faint but audible.
Shit. ]
Karen! [ He sprints down the street. The thing is, he doesn't know what they want with her—if they're looking to scare her, kidnap her, or shut her up for good, but none of that matters right now. ] Karen!
[ He crashes through the stairwell in a cloud of dust and splintered wood. Someone's kneecap crunches beneath the sheer weight of his landing. His claws tear through flesh and stone alike. Honestly? He's not thinking, just reacting. They're trying to get to her; that means he needs to get to them first, and that's exactly what he does. Shots ring between the walls. He covers her—and if he eats a few bullets in his back (goddamn it), better him than her.
He grabs her arm. No way these assholes came just the three of them. He's not sticking around for when the rest show up, not with her under his watch. ] Get up, let's go.
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they're grabbing for her, but they don't seem to want to kill her - which, when she has the time to think about it, is different than before. before, they'd tried to kill her, to make it look like an accident, but now...
now, they're trying to take her somewhere. or get something from her. and she can't- she can't let that happen.
as soon as the thought hits her, something comes crashing through the wall. and when she says crashing she does mean crashing - bursting through in a shower of dust and splinters. she hears gunshots, hears someone yelling, but that's about it because her focus is on the loosened grip and the fact she suddenly has an ankle free, and the chance to land a kick directly under her assailant's jaw. he moves, then gets stabbed from the side, and Karen is scrambling to try and stand when a hand grabs her arm. get up- ]
L-Logan? [ he's covered in dust and grime, blood too, though it doesn't look like his, and there are- ah.
there are the claws.
she lets him pull her to her feet, shaking a little and feeling bruised, but otherwise okay. which is more than she can say for the three bodies littered amongst what remains of the wall. ] Did you- [ does she need to ask? she takes an unsteady breath, adrenaline and a bit of pain keeping her upright, even as she shakes a bit, clutching her bag to her chest. ] Yeah- okay, yeah. [ she'll follow him out, though her instinct is to head back down the street, to run and make it the rest of the way to her actual building, but she'll follow logan if he says otherwise. ]
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He snatches a thumb drive off the ground. Probably tumbled out of her bag, he isn't sure, doesn't stop to think about it as he hurries alongside her. They duck around some alleyways but he's on the same page: get her back home, figure it out from there. The thing is, her apartment's chock full of those fucking files. Something tells him if they abandon ship, all of that's going up in flames.
He goes up the steps first. When opening the door doesn't blast him to pieces, he tips his head for her to come on up. ]
You okay? [ He closes the blinds, then pushes her couch away from the window. There's blood on his hands, bullet holes in his jacket (what else is new?), and a single misshapen .45 that plinks belatedly onto her floor. He doesn't seem to notice. ] Look—at least two of them are still out there, and more are coming. You need to stay put for a few days.
[ That means no libraries, no archives, definitely no interviews on little side streets. He can keep her safe, but not if she's running around the city.
He holds out the thumb drive. ] You dropped this.
[ Or somebody did. ]
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karen and logan take a few back alleys and slip between buildings before they make it back to her’s, waiting for the go ahead before she actually follows him inside. he goes to the windows, and karen triple locks her door, dropping her bag and setting her pistol on the table near the door - finally, actually, letting herself breathe.
logan is still moving - closing the blinds, pushing her couch from the door, and karen just sort of watches him. combs her fingers back through her hair as she forces herself to breathe more slowly. steadily.
when she steps into the living space, she takes a seat in the chair furthest from the window, touching at a cut at the crown of her forehead and wincing. ]
They were trying to kidnap me. [ she says after a second, looking over to him. he says two more are still out there and more are coming and karen frowns. ] They haven’t done that before. Something’s changed. If I found something-
[ logan holds out the thumb drive and karen blinks, part of her wondering if he was even listening, but a larger part of her distracted by the unfamiliar thumb drive.
she takes it from him, turning it over in her hands. ]
I’ve never seen this before. [ her eyes go from the drive, to him, and then she’s standing - planning to go get her laptop from her bag. ] Where did you find it?
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His gaze drifts to the cut on her forehead. Has half a mind to offer her a Kleenex or something when she's already up and moving. Logan perches on the couch's armrest across from her chair. ]
On the steps. Thought it was yours.
[ If it's not hers, whose? What the hell are a bunch of goons doing with a drive if their only job was to kidnap her? Assuming that was their only job, which at this point, he isn't fucking sure what's going on. (Was he ever?)
Fantastic.
He folds his arms over his chest. Starts to ask whether bunkering down is the best choice or if he oughta move her after all. To where, is the question. He doesn't exactly have a safe house lying in wait. How long before they send more than a couple of guys?
He watches her flip her laptop open. ] If they were trying to take you, it means you've got something they want.
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Not mine. A lot of computers don't even work with these anymore. Most people need an adapter to... [ her thought trails off as she sticks it into her obviously older laptop, her knee starting to tap impatiently as she tries to pull it up.
the truth is, she hasn't ever seen this before, but that doesn't mean she wasn't carrying it around. the last interviews she had, the people she spoke with, there was an overall feeling that they knew what they were doing, and how dangerous it could be. could this be someone else's? could they have slipped it into her bag as she left? it seems more likely than one of her attackers just carrying it with them to kidnap her, but...
karen's focus is very obviously moved on, despite the way she is still trembling slightly from the whole ordeal. this, at least, is something she can do. something that might lead to answers, or maybe a lead. she clicks through a few times on her computer, tries to pull up the drive. the adrenaline is pushing her forward, towards something to find, until a screen pops up that makes her curse.
she all but drops the computer down on the coffee table between them - frustrated by what she found. ]
It's encrypted. Without a password, I can't get in. [ unfortunately for them both, her technological skills don't extend to breaking through firewalls. give her a database and enough keywords and she can find just about anything. but this?
she looks over to logan - lost as far as what to do next. ]
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He peers over her shoulder, at the screen demanding a password. The box is blank. No logo, no indication of what it's even supposed to unlock. Could be anything from a distraction to a trap.
Shit.
Of course this was gonna get complicated. He knew that, didn't he? Going in? Government outfits and secret experiments that go back decades—yeah, a bunch of secret locked files is the first thing he should've expected. ]
I might know a guy, I'll make a call. [ A beat. ] Lemme look at you, you okay?
[ Not as bad as it could've been, but she's still pretty banged up. He doesn't like how easily they caught up to her. Should've stuck closer. What the hell does she have that they want? It can't be that drive, can it? She didn't even know she was carrying the thing. ]
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karen's distracted as her mind plays through a variety of scenarios, biting on her fingernails absentmindedly until logan's voice cuts through her thoughts.
of course he knows a guy. really, who is karen even kidding? she's talking to logan. the wolverine. who was sent by charles xavier. the resources of the xmen have to be so that they can crack a passwords protected thumb drive, considering they've survived the way they have - with the way they've been targeted as enemies of the state as often as they have...
part of her feels almost embarrassed for even trying.
but then there's the beat, and the second part, and she blinks - confused. look at her? then she remembers the throbbing at her temple, and her eyes go up - as if looking up to her forehead - before she exhales. ] Oh, yeah. I'm okay. I mean... I'll probably wake up with a few bruises, but you got there before they could really do anything.
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[ Some of them got away, too. He's not happy about that, and it shows, but he's not about to run off after them, either. Not 'til he knows more about what's going on. Much as he hates to admit it, if this is an active government program, he isn't sure how much he can do. It's a matter of being realistic. Charles wants to believe they can negotiate their way into Congress, Magneto thinks they gotta blow the whole thing up, and Logan?
Logan's not the guy who can guess which one's got a better chance of working. He just knows Charles' plans usually come with fewer bodies and fewer mutant kids dragged into some senseless war. That's good enough for him. But sometimes, he's gotta wonder what's gonna be good enough for this world.
Anyway, the Professor thinks this story breaking is important. So that's what Logan's sticking to.
He takes her pistol off the table and holds it out. ] Get some sleep. You need anything, just shout, I'll be...here.
[ Out there. Somewhere. It's fine. He barely sleeps, he can hang around on her roof or something. ]
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whatever this is... karen knows this feeling. she recognizes the drop from under her feet, the pressure bearing down on her every single stone she turns over. she knows this is bigger than her, but watching the weight settle on logan's shoulders makes it feel all that much worse.
she doesn't know what he's thinking about, don't know what he's considering or the lives he's lived outside of her apartment. she's read what she could find, has heard whispers and rumors and knows the stories of the wolverine, but she has very little information on the rest of it. on logan, who is a puzzle, who looks at her forehead and who darkens around not soon enough and who reminds her, so suddenly and wholly, of frank castle that something in her chest curls over itself.
he holds out her the pistol, and says get some sleep and karen's brow furrows, something like panic swelling in her chest. ] Logan- [ she does reach out, but her hand goes to his wrist - not tight, just setting her hand on his forearm. ] Stay. [ the words leave her before she realizes what's happening, but that doesn't make them any less true. ] Just....tonight, at least. I don't- if they come here, I don't know what I'd do. [ and then, when karen realizes she's basically squeezing his wrist, she lets go - taking the gun from him. ]
Please?
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He can't tell himself the same right now, not with the way Karen's looking at him with something close to dread in her eyes. He stops short, watching her. You don't want me here and I'll be right outside, promise flickers through his head. He doesn't say any of it. Something about her—something about the way she's not even bothering to hide how goddamn scared she is makes him pause. He's not sure what it means that she trusts him in her apartment after they've, what, exchanged two whole conversations? It's not that he thinks he's no good at protecting her—he knows he can, that he did and will again—but it's more, the idea of it. That him being inside her home instead of a couple steps away outside makes a difference to her.
He nods, then shrugs off his jacket. He can plant himself on her couch. Probably try not to pass out and poke any holes in it.
He digs out a cigar, holding it up. ] You mind, then?
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he completely destroyed the bottom floor of a building down the street. he killed multiple people, possible government officials, to keep her safe. he's still splattered with blood, even now, and Karen...
god, she's doing this again, isn't she? because yes, they barely spoke, they don't know each other, but- god, her heart has barely stopped racing, and the idea of trying to go to sleep, asleep in this apartment? it's not going to happen. so in that moment, in that pause, she almost wonders if he's going to say no. and then what will she do? where will she-
he nods, and Karen lets out a long, shaky breath - relieved more by that one gesture than she has in a long time. she checks the pistol's safety and stands, tucking it into another drawer. you mind? when karen looks go over and sees the cigar, she takes all of half a second to consider it (technically it's not permitted, technically she could lose her security deposit, technically...)
she shrugs. ] Open a window, but go ahead. [ she tugs her hair back, pulling a ponytail from around her wrist, and heads back over to the kitchen. she is going to need to take a shower, she's going to need to cancel her interviews tomorrow, and god- she's going to probably need to tell matt and foggy about what happened, but-
karen walks over to the sink and starts washing her hands. ] You want a drink?
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He turns around when she speaks. ] Keep this up, I'm gonna have to replenish your stash.
[ In other words: he'll take a drink. He joins her by the kitchen island. The blood's flaking off on his hands. He scrubs them, too, before he stains her furniture. His clothes, he'll deal with that later—but stripping off his outer layer solves most of the problem. There's not a scratch on him, even if some of the blood's definitely his, judging by a couple of very obvious bullet holes in his undershirt.
He studies her for a bit through a cloud of smoke, juggling half-assed sentiments of comfort that he's pretty sure she doesn't need before he settles on: ] You want something to eat?
[ Kinda feels like she could use a pizza or something with her liquor. Besides, she might as well use him to answer the door while he's around. ]
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instead, she washes her hands. she forces herself to breathe a little bit, and then a little bit more. she grabs a rag and presses it to her forehead, winces a little at the sting and heads back over to the fridge, pulls out two beers. ]
I won't say no. [ she says with a small smile, turning and setting the bottles down on the counter, turning to find a bottle opener. she's still searching when he asks about food, and she pauses for a moment, tries to think about the last time she ate a meal. ]
I could eat. [ she closes the cabinet, still no bottle opener, she huffs out a breath. ] Pizza?
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He's been eyeing her for the past thirty, forty, seconds, and after she makes another exasperated noise, Logan holds out his hand for the bottle. When she gives it, he sort of just—leverages the cap against her counter until it pops. One of those easy tricks you can do when you're capable of exerting ten times more force than average.
Or whatever it is. He wasn't paying attention last time Hank made his calculations.
He slides the bottle back across the counter. ]
So, what'd you read about me, anyway?
[ Look, he knows the stuff that's floating around out there for most to see, but he's a little curious what a reporter out of the Bulletin might've come across. ]
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of course he's the type to be able to just... do that. she watches it and then just kind of snorts, nods and takes one of the bottles. the sip she takes is long, longer than it probably needs to be, but she gives up on caring how she appears right now. ] Okay, Pizza. [ she nods, opening a drawer and pulling out a stack of pamphlets. ] Any preferences?
[ if he doesn't, she's just going to order two (three?) large pizzas anyway, ending the call and setting the phone on the counter, and then taking another long drink. maybe she should have gotten the bottle of liquor, but at the same time...
the question makes her pause, and then she lifts a brow at him. ]
You want to know? [ and it's a little bit of a tease, a smile. so he is curious, then, and Karen doesn't mind the shift in topic. she walks around the kitchen counter and back to the mess that is her living space. ]
Most of what I found refers to you as Weapon X. Or maybe the program is Weapon X? It's unclear, but I started digging a lot into Stryker, when he popped up in those articles I grabbed but... [ she searches through a few files before she pulls one out, flipping through. ] Enhanced healing, grafted adamantium skeleton, heightened senses, superhuman stamina, durability, senses, speed, strength... [ she flips back another page, scanning for anything else interesting before she pauses. ]
Are you really over a hundred years old?
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He huffs in reply to her teasing. ] Yeah, I wanna know.
[ He can't help it when a swathe of his own life's a damn mystery to him, too. But she doesn't say too much yet that he hasn't gathered by now. Alkali would have those records and charts on him. Probably have a hell of a lot more, too, stored in a freezer somewhere just waiting.
Funny, to see all of that condensed into the file she's got in her hands. ]
Uh— [ He turns to face her, resting his cigar on lid that passes for a makeshift ashtray. ] —looks that way. I remember Nagasaki...some wars before that. This old estate when I was a kid. [ He rolls his thumb between his knuckles. ] Seems nothing ever manages to kill me. Not even time.
[ So much for those life guarantees, huh? But he hasn't gone searching for that magic bullet in a while. Mostly 'cause he's accepted it's not out there, and that leaves him...here. A permanent fixture in a world that's not his and that he ends up running around trying to protect, anyway. ]
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and yet, as each second passes, Karen slowly feels herself getting more and more steady. she's not shaking anymore, either, which is nice. she might event sleep tonight.
she finds the file, repeats the information she's dragged out of page after page after page of research, and logan listens. her forehead wrinkles a bit at his answer, looks that way, and she lets the papers fall closed again. ] One of these ah- reports talked about some of the missions that Weapon X went on after everything. I'd thought for a while that it was a team, you know, one of those covert government assassin groups or something. But then I found something that looked like a list, and they all referred to one Weapon X, so part of me almost thought it was an actual weapon, a robot or something. [ she read them a few weeks back, had been so desperate for information that she hadn't been understanding them. hadn't seen the person, the human being, at the core of all of this. the list of procedures, the reports of survival, from, through, despite-
logan is still sitting at her kitchen table, and Karen feels her shoulders drop when she looks at him now, thinks about the details that she had skimmed through because none of it had really applied to what she was looking for. she'd been looking for kids, for stryker, for something that would help with her story.
this one is something else. and she feels a bit embarrassed about how she doesn't remember all of it. all of his life. she exhales. ] One of the side effects of the things in- [ she gestures with the file, then drops it back down to the table, feeling a little sick with the way some of that was described. ] -stated memory loss. Potential, in the notes, but... you don't remember, do you?
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He chuckles, dark. ] Side effect—is that what they call it?
[ Side effect. Of course that's how they wrote it down. Looks clean on the report so the people signing off on it don't feel like they got their hands dirty. A mistake. A calculated risk. Stryker insisted he volunteered, and hell, who says he didn't? God knows it didn't take much to get him to sign up for some kinda fight in those days, but the rest of it? How much of it was just always what he was? He likes to think he could've been better, might've been better. Every time he stays with the X-Men, he can almost believe he is.
Maybe that's why he keeps taking off.
He shifts his weight. Funny. A part of him doesn't wanna get into it, doesn't know what to say, and then there's this other part of him that does. Something about her just feels...easy's not the right word, but he finds himself balking less than he would've elsewhere.
She's still looking at him. ] Professor would say you can't flip through the mind like a book. It used to piss me off, but he's right. I know I killed a lot of people. [ He sets his bottle on the counter. ] I know I'm good at it whether or not somebody's pulling the strings.
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but that's for another time. she hasn't even finished this one, these kids, these poor kids, have to have justice. have to have their story out there. and then maybe, after...
she snorts a little at that. shrugs, as she crosses her arms over her chest, rubs at her own arms. ] Among other things. A lot of it's redacted, so I'm sure there's more to it. There usually is. [ karen keeps her eyes on logan, though, watching him... think? process? though something tells her what she's saying isn't new for him, isn't anything he hasn't heard or figured out before. but he's obviously looking for more, for parts of him that were taken, forgotten to history.
she picks up her bottle of beer, moving to take another one of the bar stools next to him. she's content to listen, at this point, though something tells her he's not the yapping type. ]
Trauma tends to get stuck up there, violence too. It's harder to remember the good things when you've got so much bad, but. [ she shrugs. ] From what I've read of Professor Xavier, he would know better than anyone. [ her eyes follow his bottle to the counter, then back to him, considering. I know I'm good at it he says, and yet he looks like that when he says it. ]
Is that why you work with the Professor? To kill people?
[ somewhat of a leading question, but hey, she's not a lawyer. ]
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He doesn't.
He snorts when she says trauma. It's not—whatever. Sometimes he's got shitty nightmares. He figures you live long enough, that's what happens. He didn't come here to talk about his fucked up years as somebody's science experiment, anyway. He wants answers, yeah. It also feels like every time he looks for them, somebody else is bound to get hurt. This time, it might be her.
He doesn't look at her when she sits next to him, instead leaning back. ] You don't think I'd make a good teacher?
[ He's there 'cause it's either him or the kids, and he'd rather it be him. Half of them are gunning to go on a mission; they think they're old enough. And hell, maybe they are, but they shouldn't have to be. ]
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you don't think i'd make a good teacher?
now it's karen's turn to snort, and she does - quick, surprising her. does she think he'd make a good teacher? she tilts her head back and forth a little like she's considering it before she grins a little. ]
Honestly? You're probably a favorite with all the teen girls. You give off teacher crush energy. Let me guess... P.E.?
[ they were just talking about killing people, something that she believes him wholeheartedly. but he's also... lost. looking for missing pieces of himself, looking for missing pieces of his life. karen can't help the urge to want to help him, though she's sure all that she has is basic information he's probably figured out by this point. ]
It's either that or English.
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[ He's teasing now, too, probably (definitely); maybe he shouldn't, not when she nearly goddamn died on his watch and he'd told her I'm good at killing, and he never answered her question. But she's not walking away from him or making excuses about going to bed. She's here—like it's the most natural fuckin' thing in the world to glide from killing to what kinda teacher he'd be.
A shit one, is the real answer. By the way.
He drains another third of his beer. It's late. She should get some rest. He decides he doesn't mind this, though. He's not much of a sleeper, especially isn't good at it in somebody else's house.
Footsteps register several feet from the door. Logan's already getting up before the knock comes. He opens the door—can smell the pizza, too, through it, and sure enough, the pimple-faced kid's standing there with a stack of boxes. He shoves a fifty into the boys hand. ] Keep the change.
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its only a few moments later than she breaks, giggling a little bit. she knows there is probably more to that story, knows that when logan doesn't add anything else to the story. but karen doesn't need to know more than that, not right now. maybe not ever. but it wouldn't be the first time.
and yeah, it is late, and it's getting later. karen knows that she's going to hurt tomorrow, more so if she doesn't sleep, but the exhaustion that has hung over her for weeks, that she feels in her bones, it's still there but it's not going to take her to sleep. not yet, at least.
she downs the rest of her beer, is about to stand for more when logan pushes to his feet first. it's an immediate reaction that shoots fear through her chest, freezes her to the spot as she watches him move to her front door. she doesn't take her eyes off him as he moves to the door, her hand reaching - slowly - across the counter to a pair of scissors.
and then she hears it, the exchange, the smell of pizza, the kid dropping the boxes off. karen realizes, very suddenly, how ridiculous she's acting. karen lets go of the scissors, rubs her hands across her face as she exhales, tries to force herself to relax.
yeah, she's not sleeping any time soon.
it's not until logan brings the pizza back over to the counter that karen lets out another breath, rubs at her face again before she stands. ]
Do you want a plate? [ that's not what she's going for, necessarily, but it's a good excuse to get back up into the cabinet, another half bottle of whiskey. ]
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For now, the best he's got is sticking close.
Logan slides the boxes onto the table. His gaze flicks to the stuff she's got on there, all the little things that tell more about a person than what they say. ]
Nah. [ He's a paper towel kinda guy, which is what he uses to toss a couple slices of pepperoni on. He settles back on the stool. ] Could use some of that, though.
[ He's referring to the whiskey. Which—if she hands it over—he'll take after he checks a message on his phone. He wasn't expecting anybody to answer at this hour, but the little buzz says different. He slips the phone back in his pocket without replying. Part of him still has questions about Matt Murdock. Where the hell did he go? What's he digging up? ]
Those guys that came after you—were they the same ones following you?
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happy 100th comment :3
:333
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